To 85% of the population - you're in LondonHowyoudoin wrote:I’m living in the very outskirts of what would be considered London although I don’t have a London postcode. Some people would say I live in Essex.Hallucigenia wrote:Well average gross salary in the UK is £2,621 per month, and average mortgage payment was £750/month as of a few weeks ago, so I suspect you have a somewhat London-centric view of things.
A family living in my area with a mortgage and childcare costs could not survive on the average salary you have quoted, which was the whole point of my OP. You now need two salaries to make things work. This was not the case in my parents day. In most cases, the husband would go to work, the wife would tend to the house and children.
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
Needing two salaries is a general thing, but it is fascinating looking at the regional variation. I've seen a map of disposable income by district, which obviously depends on both income and housing costs, a lot of the country doesn't have the income, London obviously has the income but gets crushed by housing costs, ISTR places like Cheshire and Hampshire were in the Goldilocks zone of decent incomes without housing costs being too bad.
The other factor is big housing costs aren't quite so bad if you're paying a mortgage to build an asset that you can later live in free from capex or downsize from, you're screwed if you're paying London rent.
Certainly not in 9-5 "career" jobs, they might have had something part-time before then. To take one example, the LSE didn't have any women brokers until 1973 :Howyoudoin wrote:Seriously?Gerry557 wrote:50 years ago most women probably didn't work.
Is this because they were taking care of their kids / family?
HYD
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/women ... hange.html
It went along with perhaps the biggest social change of the late 20th century which was a massive shift in the age of first baby, which went from something like 24 to 32 between about 1975 and the early 90s.