Female-dominated industries and care work dominate the list of the most common jobs linked to those who struggle to save for a deposit for a home.
Sadly, this is hardly surprising.
We know care-related work, including nursing, aged care, and all forms of teaching, continues to be some of the most undervalued work in Australia. These industries are also heavily dominated by women.
The analysis released this week, requested by the Greens, shows that those in aged or disability care would need to save for almost two decades to save a 20 per cent housing deposit if they were putting away 15 per cent of their salary annually.
If this deposit can be pulled together, those carers would need to spend more than two-thirds of what they earn to manage the mortgage payments of the median price of a dwelling in Australia.
But child carers would need to wait even longer—more than three decades—to save for a deposit. This timeframe should be slightly reduced with the Federal Government’s recently announced pay increase for such workers/
The data finds that primary school teachers would need 12 years to save for a 20 per cent deposit, registered nurses 11 years, aged and disability carers 19 years, and child carers a massive 31 years.
The Greens released the data as spokesperson for Housing and Homelessness Max Chandler-Mather called on the Federal Government to build more public housing, pointing to international examples of higher rates of home ownership.
Growing challenges around home ownership is just one aspect of the current housing crisis in Australia, contributing to an increase in homelessness among women and further hurdles for those escaping domestic and family violence.
A new report by Everybody’s Home, based on more than 1500 submissions and 100 organisations, outlines the extent of this crisis and calls on the government to build 750,000 social homes over the next two decades.
In addition, the report recommends that housing be recognised as a human right, that tax concessions for investors be abolished, and that housing justice be pursued for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
On those tax concessions, figures from the Parliamentary Budget Office released in June showed negative gearing will cost Australia’s bottom line about $100.1 billion in lost revenue earnings over 10 years, while capital gains tax discounts cost $65.46 billion in tax.
The Everybody’s Home report highlights several responses from older people, particularly women, including a retired nurse called Lyn, who shared that she’s been forced to find informal and house-sitting arrangements while struggling in the private rental market following her divorce.
“At the age of 73, I was looking down the barrel of being homeless for the first time in my life,” she shared with the report. “While I do have a little Honda Jazz, I didn’t like the idea of living in it full time.”
Lyn shared how she explored the idea of public housing and discovered the waiting list was ten years long.
The reports said that every year, domestic violence and the lack of long-term social housing are seeing 7,690 women returning to violent partners and another 9120 women becoming homeless in the process of leaving violent relationships.
Home ownership is a key factor in “providing for comfortable and dignified retirement”, the report states, with the age pension and the aged care system being predicated upon the assumption of home ownership.
But now and well into the future, it’s clear this “system” is being impacted by the crucial challenge of home ownership — and those working in the most critical aspect of Australia, the care economy, are increasingly the most likely to be priced out of such ownership.