My father who has been absolute in his opinion that young people have it easier then they did in his generation has finally caved.
Spent the last few years trying to show him how ****ed our generation is compared to previous generations, and today he finally gave in.
We were working through some of the finances for me and my wife to hopefully purchase a house sometime early in 2017.. but we got sidetracked looking at how he and my mother would get on if their circumstances were the same, but they were alive today instead of 30 years ago.
Being a banker he started a spreadsheet and we put in all of the relevant finances, comparing it to how he got on 30 years ago.
30 years ago he brought a 3 bedroom bungalow on a fair size piece of land, in a posh town in the southwest.. using both their respected salaries.
These days with two people doing the same jobs, and factoring in the current wage levels for those positions.. he realized that not only could he not buy that 3 bedroom house, he couldn't afford any house in the town. In fact he could barely afford a 1 bedroom flat, and even that was on a proportionally higher mortgage then he had 30 years back.
Real wake up call for him, as before it was always hypothetical. It was news articles saying 'young people find it harder'.. and he would always think '*******s, we had it hard too! we had to save up etc. etc.' - but now seeing just how ****ed he would be if he was born today.. I think he has finally got the picture.
Thats before you even take into consideration how much less job security they would both have, and that these days they would both have student debt, which neither had before, and all the other complications of modern life.