Give me the % rate of young people (aged 18-25) renting homes in 2024 compared to 1980s in victoria australia
Executive summary
There is no single figure in the supplied reporting that gives the precise percentage of 18–25 year‑olds renting in Victoria in 2024 or an exactly comparable percentage for the 1980s; official snapshots and specialist reports instead describe broad trends: renting has grown and become more entrenched, young people face higher rents and tenure insecurity, and a larger share of older Australians now rent [1] [2] [3]. Because the sources do not publish a direct 18–25 Victorian rentership rate for 1980s versus 2024, any numeric “% rate” comparison requested cannot be produced from these materials without extrapolation beyond the available evidence [2] [1].
1. What the sources actually contain about renters’ age profile
Victorian government publications and the Commissioner’s Snapshot emphasise that younger renters still outnumber older renters but that the fastest growth in rentership has been among people aged 55 and over; the Snapshot focuses on patterns and pressures in the rental sector rather than single-year cohort percentages for 18–25 year‑olds [1] [2]. Advocacy groups and sector reports repeatedly highlight that young people are especially vulnerable to rising rents, short tenures and affordability thresholds—Melbourne’s average weekly rent and the inadequacy of youth income supports are cited as evidence of this pressure—but they offer prevalence and affordability indicators rather than historic cohort percentages [3] [4] [5].
2. What’s missing for a direct numeric comparison (why an exact % can’t be given from these sources)
None of the provided documents or articles contain a clear stated percentage of Victorians aged 18–25 who were renting in the 1980s, nor do they specify that same percentage for 2024; instead they give contemporary snapshots, rent indices, vacancy figures and analyses of affordability and tenure change [2] [6] [7]. The absence of a time‑series age‑cohort table spanning the 1980s to 2024 in the supplied reporting means that producing an exact historical-to-present percentage comparison for 18–25 year‑olds would require additional data sources—principally historical Census tabulations or dedicated age‑by‑tenure time series from the ABS or Victorian statistical releases—which are not included here [1] [6].
3. What the evidence does say about direction and scale of change
Collectively the reports indicate that renting is less a temporary phase for young people than it was historically: Australians are renting in growing numbers and for longer, homeownership rates have trended downwards nationally across recent decades, and rental affordability hit record lows in 2024 in most cities—factors that point to a larger share of younger adults renting now than several decades ago [1] [8] [9]. Government and advocacy reports document acute affordability pressure—for example very low proportions of rentals affordable to someone on Youth Allowance—and frequent short‑term tenures for young renters, signalling both higher prevalence of renting among precarious youth and poorer quality of tenure [5] [3] [4].
4. Competing interpretations and possible agendas in the sources
Advocacy groups and service providers foreground youth hardship and policy fixes, which can emphasise affordability shortfalls and low availability of suitable rentals for young people [4] [3]; government snapshots aim to inform policy but may frame findings to support incremental regulatory change rather than radical market intervention [2] [10]. Industry and media pieces may emphasise rent‑price movements or the effects on investors and owners, which can shift attention away from age‑specific tenure shares; these differing emphases mean readers should treat qualitative directionality (more young people renting, worse affordability) as well supported while being cautious about precise magnitude claims absent raw cohort data [11] [12].
5. What would be needed to produce the requested percent‑to‑percent comparison
To answer the question exactly—“% of 18–25 year‑olds renting in Victoria in 2024 compared to the 1980s”—requires age‑by‑tenure cross‑tabulations from reliable longitudinal sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics Census microdata or time‑series tables that show tenure by five‑year age bands for Victoria in 1981/1986 and 2021/2024, or Victorian Rental Report datasets broken down by age cohorts if they exist [6] [1]. The supplied materials point clearly to a rise in long‑term renting and worsening affordability for young people [9] [3], but they do not supply the discrete historical percentages the user requested [2].