Newly-weds Find State Aid Too Costly

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31150, 29 August 1966, Page 2

Newly-weds Find State Aid Too Costly

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter)

STOCKHOLM.

Swedish newly-weds setting up homes can get Government loans to buy furniture and carpets. But some couples say that they cannot afford the repayments.

One husband who knows this is 24-year-old Mr Kurt Nilsson, who lives outside Stockholm. “We could have had a Government loan to buy furniture but it has to be repaid and even if the terms were very favourable we could not afford it,” he says.

“We have a car because the journey into town is so long and the buses so few. That takes up about one-third of the money we get so I have to work overtime regularly to make ends meet.”

Other couples find that by the time they have paid for food, rent, hire purchase instalments, fares and quarterly gas and electricity bills, they have nothing left for a car, holidays or entertainments. Because of an acute housing shortage—at least 170,000 people are waiting for homes in ’Stockholm—many couples live with their parents. It is not uncommon to find a family of four or five living in as many separate homes spread across the country, the children staying with in-laws, or relatives hundreds of miles from their parents. Nowadays more wives tend to work, some because of the

extremely high Swedish cost of living, others because they like to.

Women’s salaries vary widely, but the average family may have a joint gross income of about £215 a month—which leaves them with about £l5O after taxation. The family budget also varies considerably, but a couple living in a two-roomed flat with kitchen and bathroom close to the city, have little left over for themselves. Their

budget for the month includes rent, about £4O; food, £33: cigarettes (20 a day for one person), £8; and fares, about £6 10s. This leaves them about £57 to pay quarterly bills for electricity, gas, telephone and newspapers, as well as for such extras as clothing, toilet articles, television and radio licences, hire purchase instalments ahd insurance policies. Many families delay having children because of the expense.

Mrs Klki Berg, a 21-year-old Stockholm bride of six months, summed it up: “Married life,” she said, “has its rewards but the price is one Of continual scraping for more money. You just cannot save. We often find that to be able to pay ill the bills we have to cut back on food, which is one of the most expensive items in our budget.”