No, the Bank of Mum and Dad isn’t sexist

I don’t trust a lot of what comes out of universities’ gender studies departments – which seem to me to be more political activism dressed up in academic clothing. But I am not quite convinced, either, of the scientific rigour behind the University of Zoopla’s claim that parents are being far more generous in gifting house deposits to their sons than they are towards their daughters. The property portal has put out a press release this week claiming that daughters are granted an average of £51,671 towards buying a home, compared with £65,004 for sons. The finding, it says, was based on a poll of 1,000 first-time buyers, 630 of whom had received some degree of financial help from their families.

Inevitably, it has given rise to claims of a ‘gender divide’ in house-buying, fed by sexism on the part of parents.