Yep it sucks. Many people I know cannot afford unless there are two people paying the bills. You need two to tango for kids of course, and some might argue why do you need a 3 bed house if you are single without kids (I am assuming here - you may not be). Of course that is no one's business apart from your own and shouldn't factor in to this.
Because the 3 bed house is a signal to potential mates that you are financially capable of starting a family. Don't get me wrong there's a lot that goes into picking a partner and not everyone is going to be bothered by it, but there's a substantial portion out there who are going to look at where you live as an indicator of whether you're a potential long term suitor. Which is sad really because I think people used to meet, fall in love with the actual person rather than a checklist, and then took on challenges together and grew as a result, like moving into a small or rundown house, renovating it and then starting a family. There is an insidious streak in dating culture now where getting with someone who hasn't already made it is interpreted as "settling for less than you deserve". Don't get me wrong, you've got to have some standards and dealbreakers, but if you watch any of the matchmaking shows on Netflix, the potential criteria most of the dates have for their potential partners is wild. There's a reason Sima Aunty is always telling them to compromise, she knows exactly what's up!
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/millennials-will-not...
This is a pretty good analysis. Yes, some rightward shift. Things to change, though sometimes they change back as well. Millennials are still far more left-leaning than boomers as they age.
> Critically, millennials are also much more Democratic than their predecessors were at the same age, as the chart above on the age gap in recent U.S. elections makes clear. And this exceptional partisan distribution is rooted in the generation’s distinctive social values, which do not typically change drastically over time.
This data is particularly telling: https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt...
Other reading material: https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767... https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/generation-wars-ov... https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/21/age-not-cla...
I truly think it has radicalized a lot of us. My generation (millennials and younger) are one of the first ones not to slide further right politically as time goes on but remain staunchly left wing. That's culturally significant; a highly educated middle class is swinging a way they never normally do, outside of a revolutionary period (war/famine/etc). I see Socialist posters everywhere I go, and everywhere we're seeing strikes in almost every industry. There's inevitably going to be more civil unrest and eventual violence in our countries future.
It feels like we're sliding into some sort of capitalist feudalism, where the rich continue to accumulate property, and people who don't have the means already (through family, inheritance, or a very high paying career) are stuck to a life of renting, with no wealth to pass on to their children. Right now, even if I could afford a 2-3 bed house somewhere (maybe £300k, so a £30k deposit), I'd be paying £1800 a month in mortgage looking at a calculator from Barclays. That's nearing 100% of my take home after tax/student loan. It's obscene.
I work in the semiconductor industry and have done for close to 5 years now. I worked damn hard to get here. All my older colleagues (50+), who's career path I've followed pretty much 1:1, had a house, kids, and some decent savings by the time they were my age. Some were even building up a portfolio of investments. I'm years away from being anywhere close to that. I end up with barely anything left after bills/groceries/other expenses. I've just taken up a second job working three nights a week in a bar just so I can actually afford to go to do anything fun after I've maxed out my ISA so I can maybe get a house in 5 years. It's cripplingly demotivating, and if I had the time to do else but work myself out of this hole I'd probably be on the picket line too.