An exploration of female home ownership patterns in Australia

In Australia one of the most important factors contributing to housing demand is the growth in the number of households and lone person and single parent households are the two households projected to grow fastest. Both households are significantly over represented by female headship. At the same time women are being associated with longer life spans, higher levels of workforce participation, higher rates of pay and increasing levels of wealth accumulation. Thus there is the expectation that significantly more women will be looking to purchase homes on their own and that this will be an important determinant of their ability to secure adequate living standards in old age. Yet there has been little research on female home ownership in Australia. This paper presents a preliminary analysis of female first home buyers in Australia for two time periods, 1998 and 2008 using national survey data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Key characteristics and changes over time are identified as a first step in identifying the propensity to purchase by female headed households.