plateau. In reality, the curve won’t necessarily level off at 100 per
cent: the final amount of people affected will depend on who is initially
‘susceptible’ to the happening.
As an illustration, consider home ownership in the UK. Of people
who were born in 1960, very few were homeowners by the age of
twenty, but the majority had owned a house by the time they were
thirty years old. In contrast, people who were born in 1980 or 1990
had a much lower chance of becoming a homeowner during each
year of their twenties. If we plot the proportion of people who become
homeowners over time, we can see how quickly ownership grows in
different age groups.
Percentage of people who were homeowners by a given age, based
on year of birth
Data: Council of Mortgage Lenders[50]Of course, home ownership isn’t completely random – factors such
as inheritance influence people’s chance of buying – but the overall
pattern lines up with Ross’s concept of an independent happening.
On average, one twenty-year-old becoming a homeowner won’t have
much effect on whether another gets on the housing ladder. As long
as events occur independently of one another at a fairly consistent
rate, this overall pattern won’t vary much. Whether we plot the