Young people are renting longer and delaying marriage and family, raising the prospect for policy-makers of greater pressure on the Age Pension and Rent Assistance if the trend continues, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) reports. Given the decline in public housing, having more older renters (who are reliant on the Age Pension) will also increase pressure on the private rental market.
The total number of households headed by a person aged 15–24 dropped from 379,000 to 332,500, even though the population in this age group rose from 2,704,362 individuals in 2006 to 3,081,978 in 2012. This indicates that around 97,500 young households (either as homeowners, home buyers or renters) didn’t form during this period.
Increasing the supply of affordable housing throughout Australian cities would help young households to form a family with the confidence they could live with a degree of financial security.
