Give me statistics on the change in % of young people (aged 18-25) buying homes now compared to young people (18-25) in 1980 in Victoria or Australia
Executive summary
Home‑ownership among younger Australians has fallen substantially since the late 20th century, but the available public datasets and reports do not provide a clean, nationally comparable time series for the 18–25 age band specifically; instead most sources report for adjacent cohorts such as 25–29 and 30–34. The best comparable figures show roughly a 14 percentage‑point drop in ownership for those in their late‑20s/early‑30s between the 1970s and 2021 (for example 25–29 fell from about 50% to 36% and 30–34 from 64% to 50%), with researchers and policy bodies warning this reflects a long‑running structural decline rather than a short‑term blip [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Where the evidence speaks: declines for late‑20s and early‑30s cohorts
National statistical compilations and independent analyses consistently record marked falls in home‑ownership for cohorts closest to 18–25: the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports home‑ownership among 25–29‑year‑olds fell from about 50% in 1971 to 36% in 2021, and among 30–34‑year‑olds from 64% to 50% over the same period [1]; complementary journalism and research summaries reach the same broad magnitudes, noting more than half of 25–29‑year‑old households were homeowners in the 1980s but fewer than 40% were in the 2021 Census [3] [5].
2. What that implies for the 18–25 band (and the data gap)
There is no single source among the provided reporting that gives a direct historical series for 18–25‑year‑olds across 1980 to today, so any comparison must use the nearest age bands (25–29, 30–34) as proxies and explicitly acknowledge the gap; these proxies indicate declines of roughly 14 percentage points for those around their early 30s and about 14 percentage points (50% → 36%) for late‑20s between the 1970s/1980s and 2021, which strongly suggests younger adults today (including 18–25) are substantially less likely to own than equivalent ages in 1980 but cannot produce an exact 18–25 percentage change from the sources provided [1] [3] [2].
3. How researchers and authorities characterise the trend
Academic and policy analyses frame the fall as long‑term and structural: Reserve Bank and AHURI research identify a pronounced decline in younger households’ ownership beginning in the early 1980s and continuing through the 1990s and 2000s, and project further long‑run declines unless policy and institutional settings change; AHURI explicitly warns that younger cohorts may never “catch up” to earlier generations’ ownership rates [2] [6] [4].
4. Causes flagged by the evidence (short statement)
The literature links the decline to multiple interacting factors rather than a single cause: rising house prices relative to income (particularly from the mid‑1990s), slower accumulation of deposits, demographic shifts (later marriage and household formation), and institutional policy changes that have altered pathways into ownership—observations that appear across ABS/academic summaries and RBA commentary [2] [4] [7].
5. Regional note — Victoria vs national data and limits of reporting
Some reporting highlights state‑level shifts (for example commentary that Victoria’s outright ownership share has fallen among older cohorts), but the supplied sources do not provide a precise historical 18–25 series for Victoria specifically, so it is not possible from these documents to state a quantified change for 18–25 Victorians between 1980 and today; where state comparisons exist they tend to address wider age bands or overall ownership shares rather than the requested 18–25 bracket [5] [8].
6. Bottom line and caveats for interpretation
Bottom line: using the nearest available age bands, ownership among Australians in their late‑20s/early‑30s has declined by roughly 14 percentage points since the 1970s/1980s (e.g., 25–29: ~50% → 36%; 30–34: 64% → 50%), which implies a substantial fall for younger adults including 18–25, but the precise percentage change for the 18–25 band in Victoria or nationally between 1980 and today cannot be calculated from the provided sources because they do not report that exact age band historically [1] [3] [2] [4].