Women’s life course and precarious housing in older age: an Australian qualitative study

With increasing numbers of older Australian women facing housing precarity, it is essential to understand how this social problem persists and grows despite structural change with greater participation of women in employment and education, and greater societal recognition of their rights. We drew on a life course framework to consider the interaction of personal and societal conditions to understand how older women come to be precariously housed in older age. Life history interviews with 30 older women who accessed social housing due to housing precarity were completed. The qualitative analysis identified three groups: women who were lifelong renters by choice and then struggled with private rental costs on a pension in older age; women who carried into older age accumulated disadvantage over their lives; and women who lost home ownership despite initial advantages in education, employment, and assets. Although events such as ill health can have a longstanding impact on women’s lives and housing security, it is the interaction of multiple structural and personal circumstances across the life course that result in later life housing precarity. The impact of violence including the striking effect of economic abuse on women’s housing pathways was a dominant finding in our study.