Millennials are struggling to buy a home - but is it actually getting easier?

Leaving education, getting a job, buying a home and perhaps starting a family: the path previous generations followed may seem a distant dream to many now.

But is it getting a bit easier - at least when it comes to getting on the housing ladder?

Today's prospective first-time buyers may well feel hard done by; they are still worse off than recent generations.

If you were born in the UK in the mid-1990s you've about a 25% chance of owning your own home, as this chart shows.

Twenty-somethings in the 1990s were almost twice as likely to be on the housing ladder, the previous generation even more so.

But before looking at the current picture, what's behind the longer term shift?

One issue is that property prices have outpaced incomes across many decades.

In the chart below, housing economist Paul Cheshire puts it starkly, comparing the rise in egg prices with house prices over the past 71 years.