From: Michael Croft
Gen X destined to rent forever
By Iain Payten
February 11, 2002
INSECURITY in the workplace and the rising cost of living are forcing growing numbers of Generation X to abandon hope of buying a home, a study has found.
The number of people aged between 24 and 34 buying homes has fallen by 10 per cent over the past two decades, according to a report by the research group Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA).
Reliance on private rentals has "increased enormously" – the product of a marked shift in the labour market from a climate of stability to one of risk and uncertainty.
"The 24 to 34-year-old age group – which we regard as a very good barometer of today's social environment – are hitting a very different labour market in terms of increased precariousness," said Linda Hancock, co-editor of the CEDA report.
"We have one of the highest rates of non-standard work (casual, part-time or unstable tenure) in the world."
Dr Hancock said growing numbers of professionals, entering the workforce at a later stage due to more extended education, were finding it difficult to save for a deposit while paying high rents in the inflated rental market.
"Particularly with substantial HECS debts, they then find themselves unable to bridge the gap to coming up with a deposit for buying a home. They feel like there is no option available," she said.
The chain of marriage, birth of the first child and entry into home ownership that characterised previous generations has been broken, the report says. Increased social risk has created a prevailing attitude of uncertainty about "what will come next".
"If we don't change things pretty quickly, they are not going to have the income to be self-supporting, they are not going to have the housing that they can hedge against poverty and old age, and they are not going to be in a position to pay into super because a lot of them will be in precarious work that doesn't have it," Dr Hancock said.
She said the Government's first home-buyers grant (initially $7000, then rising to $14,000) had been a "disastrous" lure for people to enter the property market prematurely. The grant's recipients were now at the mercy of interest-rate increases.
Solutions to the problem should include a focus on creating more full-time employment, she said.
Gen X destined to rent forever
By Iain Payten
February 11, 2002
INSECURITY in the workplace and the rising cost of living are forcing growing numbers of Generation X to abandon hope of buying a home, a study has found.
The number of people aged between 24 and 34 buying homes has fallen by 10 per cent over the past two decades, according to a report by the research group Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA).
Reliance on private rentals has "increased enormously" – the product of a marked shift in the labour market from a climate of stability to one of risk and uncertainty.
"The 24 to 34-year-old age group – which we regard as a very good barometer of today's social environment – are hitting a very different labour market in terms of increased precariousness," said Linda Hancock, co-editor of the CEDA report.
"We have one of the highest rates of non-standard work (casual, part-time or unstable tenure) in the world."
Dr Hancock said growing numbers of professionals, entering the workforce at a later stage due to more extended education, were finding it difficult to save for a deposit while paying high rents in the inflated rental market.
"Particularly with substantial HECS debts, they then find themselves unable to bridge the gap to coming up with a deposit for buying a home. They feel like there is no option available," she said.
The chain of marriage, birth of the first child and entry into home ownership that characterised previous generations has been broken, the report says. Increased social risk has created a prevailing attitude of uncertainty about "what will come next".
"If we don't change things pretty quickly, they are not going to have the income to be self-supporting, they are not going to have the housing that they can hedge against poverty and old age, and they are not going to be in a position to pay into super because a lot of them will be in precarious work that doesn't have it," Dr Hancock said.
She said the Government's first home-buyers grant (initially $7000, then rising to $14,000) had been a "disastrous" lure for people to enter the property market prematurely. The grant's recipients were now at the mercy of interest-rate increases.
Solutions to the problem should include a focus on creating more full-time employment, she said.
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