Young outright owner occupiers in britain

The socio-economic geographic demographic and characteristics of young outright owner occupiers in Britain are examined, using data from the 1981 Labour Force Survey. They are shown to be a heterogeneous group, including wealthy professionals, farmers and high proportions of the manual social classes. Omitting the specialised sub-populations of professionals and farmers, it was found that young outright owners are more likely to be self-employed or unemployed than are mortgagors; more likely to be from a lower social class; more likely to live in 'peripheral’ areas of the country and more likely to be of Asian ethnic origin. In addition, the physical condition of outright owned homes is substantially inferior to that of mortgaged owner occupied homes. The only major common feature to emerge for this group is their marginal labour force status. It is suggested that outright ownership represents an alternative to publicly-rented tenure for groups who are denied access to conventional channels of mortgage finance.