Ageing and Declining Rates of Home Ownership: Twin Threats to Housing Assistance

This paper combines forecasts of Australia's population with microsimulation and tenure choice models to generate estimates of housing assistance demand from older Australians in 2031. Our projections suggest that singles retreat from home ownership, while rental tenures become increasingly feminised by 2031 as they turn into the tenures of (constrained) choice for a growing proportion of singles and sole parents. Even if home ownership declines by a modest 5 percentage points, real government expenditure on Commonwealth Rent Assistance for Australians aged 55 years and over in 2031 is projected to be more than three times its level in 2011.