Australia's housing choices: Retrospect and prospect

Demographic, lifestyle, economic and policy changes have all shaped and reshaped housing markets. They have had profound effects on the housing choices open to households and on the constraints households face in framing and achieving their aspirations. One of these long-held aspirations has been home ownership, with Australia enjoying one of the highest rates in the world. Much of this can be attributed to a rapidly increasing standard of living, to high rates of population growth in the immediate postwar period, and to postwar policies that facilitated access to ownership for first home buyers. Social and economic changes in the last few decades have raised questions about the sustainability of home ownership. Household incomes have become increasingly unequal and there is a perception they have become less certain. Both factors impinge upon the capacity of households to access home ownership. Significant economic and labour market restructuring has contributed to a questioning of the ethos of home ownership. These developments, along with a switch in government support for housing away from direct involvement to provision of rent assistance for low income households, have revitalised interest in the role of the private rental market, in particular, its low rent end. The papers in this special housing issue of Urban Policy and Research reflect the culmination of a three year collaborative project on the housing choices made by Australian households as a result of the changing opportunities and constraints arising from this period of unprecedented social and economic change. The project, which was funded by the Australian Research Council and sponsored by the Department of Family and Community Services and the Real Estate Institute of Australia, was specifically concerned with how these changes have affected housing outcomes. Some of the initial results were published in Yates and Wulff (1999). Judith Yates