Almost 4.6 million Britons say they expect to start a family in the future but don’t believe they will have a secure job when they do, according to new research from Santander Insurance.
Forty-one per cent of UK adults who expect to become a parent in the future say it’s unlikely they or their partner will have a secure job when they do and 54 per cent (6 million) expect to start a family before getting married. Forty-four per cent say it’s unlikely they will be living in a home that is large enough to comfortably raise a child by the time they become a parent.
Santander’s survey reveals that 55 per cent of people who hope to start a family in the future expect to do so before becoming a homeowner and just less than half (48 per cent) say it’s unlikely they will have any household savings by the time they have a child. Sixty-five per cent still expect to have outstanding debts (other than a mortgage) and 83 per cent don’t believe they will have started a private pension at this point.
Santander also questioned parents about which of these building blocks they had in place when they started a family and found that a higher proportion did in the majority of cases. Only a third (33 per cent) of parents were without a secure job when they had their first child and just 29 per cent did so unmarried. Two thirds of existing parents (55 per cent) didn’t own their home when they had their first child and 37 per cent say they lived in a home that was too small to bring up their child.
Richard Al-Dabbagh, Santander Insurance, said: “Parents are increasingly prioritising having a child over other aspects of life such as home ownership and marriage. The financial commitments involved with all of these things are significant and against a backdrop of squeezed incomes it’s simply not possible for every family to tick every box. However, having some form of financial contingency is vital. Parents spend around £540 per month raising a child on average, which is why having some kind of provision in place to support their children if anything should happen to them is so important.”
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