Rates of property ownership were almost exactly even between men and women in Australia in 2023. That’s according to the most recent Women and Property Report released by analysts at CoreLogic.
Analysts found that 68.2% of Australian women own property, either as residence or investment. That’s in comparison to 67.4% of Australian men.
In Australia, home ownership is an especially key metric of financial wellbeing. The median house rose in value by $61,000 in 2023, a figure that is higher than the after-tax income of most Australians. Houses, in other words, “earn” more than people.
Women in Australia are perhaps more cognisant of this reality than men. Among those earning over $100,000 per year, 91% of women own a house compared to 83% of men.
This could also be said to reflect a difference in risk appetite that runs along gender lines. Women are also more likely to invest in long-term deposits. Men on the other hand are more likely than women to own shares or cryptocurrency.
An enigmatic feature of gender and home ownership patterns in Australia is how it plays out across the generations. For instance, among Gen Z women (defined as those aged 18 to 29), just 27.3% own property. This is in striking contrast to the proportion of Gen Z male property owners, which stands at 51.6%.
But from ages 30 to 44 (the millennial generation), 72% of women own property compared to 63% of men. And from 45 to 64 (Gen X), 76% of women own property compared to 69% of males.
The differences perhaps reflect men’s greater presence in the trades, which effectively front-load a worker’s lifetime earnings. Australian women are much more likely to do a degree than an apprenticeship. At Australian universities, 58% of undergraduate students are women, and this pushes women’s earnings potential to later in life.
Thumbnail image courtesy of @zoltantasi via Unsplash.
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