The latest results from a long-running household survey show economic inequality has reached a high not seen in 20 years and home ownership rates collapsing in every age cohort. The HILDA study uses data collected from the same 17-thousand people, interviewed year-on-year.
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00:00So, what we've found is that in the most recent year, inequality in terms of income was the
00:10highest we've seen in the history of the study. So, the study started in 2001 and in 2022,
00:17when we had our most recent data, we saw inequality at its highest level. And that's, there are
00:22various measures of measuring, of ways of measuring inequality, but basically what it's
00:29saying is that the distance between the rich and the poor has gotten bigger. We have what
00:35we call a Gini coefficient, which is the higher that is, the more unequal is the distribution
00:42of income. And that's at its highest level that we've ever had.
00:47Yeah, and so that's the 17,000 people you interview, the top earners in that cohort
00:53are earning more and that the bottom cohort is earning less and becoming bigger. Is that
00:58basically what's happening?
00:59Yes. Now, I should say that, you know, the context here is really important that, you
01:06know, this is really, I think, to some extent, an aftershock of COVID. You know, during COVID,
01:11we saw a big increase in government income supports to help people get through the pandemic
01:16and by 2022, they were withdrawn. And I think that, you know, had an initial adverse effect
01:24on incomes at the lower end, but less easily explained is why incomes also seem to take
01:29off a bit at the top end. So it's a story of both ends of the income distribution, if
01:36you like.
01:37Okay. One of the striking figures to me out of this was to do with gambling, particularly
01:41sports betting. Take us through what's happened with that.
01:45Yeah. So we've been looking at this since 2015 and what we've seen is quite a big increase
01:52actually in, yeah, as you said, sports gambling. And it's particularly concentrated on men,
01:58no surprise there, I guess. But between 2015 and 2022, we saw a 66% increase in sports
02:05gambling among men.
02:07Is that in the number of men gambling or how much they're placing on bets?
02:12The number participating in it, yeah. So participation's really grown, yeah.
02:17And do you put that down to anything in particular?
02:19Well, I mean, I guess the advertising might be working. You can't watch a sports event
02:25without being bombarded with ads. And obviously it's very easy to do now with the apps on
02:31your smartphone. And so, but yes, I mean, it's hard to pinpoint exactly other than the
02:40fact that the companies are competing vigorously and promoting their products very aggressively.
02:46And what's happening with rates of home ownership?
02:49Yes, we've got a long term trend decline in home ownership, particularly amongst younger
02:54people, sort of people under the age of 45 or 50. That's, you know, occasionally we get
03:02an upward turn in home ownership when house prices moderate a bit. But the broad trend
03:07is pretty clear. And, you know, we're seeing a widening gap between home ownership rates
03:13amongst older people where home ownership has held up. But they typically got into the
03:19housing market when houses were a lot cheaper and have, in fact, have benefited quite a
03:23lot from the growth in house prices since then. But for younger people, it's been getting
03:29increasingly difficult to get into the market. And it's not helped by things like other forms
03:35of debt being higher for younger cohorts. They have a lot more student debt, for example,
03:40in the form of HECS or HELP, which is also inhibiting their ability to take on more debt.
03:47And what about this spike in damage to households as a reflection of natural disasters, I guess?
03:53Yes. So since 2009, we've been collecting data on people who report that their house
03:58has been damaged or destroyed by a weather related event. So that's something like a
04:02cyclone or floods more generally, or bushfire. And, you know, typically most years it's around
04:10one to one and a half percent of people report that their home's been damaged or destroyed.
04:15But in 2022, that shot up to four and a half percent, which translates to about one in
04:21twenty two people having their home damaged or destroyed. And that was a period when we
04:25had the severe floods in New South Wales and Queensland in that period. In fact, in New
04:31South Wales, we had nine percent of people saying that their home was damaged or destroyed
04:37by a weather related event. And that's just a phenomenally big number. It's one in eleven
04:43people. It just shows you how widespread the effects of these disasters can be. And obviously,
04:48it's rather pertinent at this point in time with what's sitting off the coast of Queensland
04:57and New South Wales at the moment.
04:58And so overall, Roger, what kind of picture does this continue to paint about Australia?
05:05Well, you know, there are many varied stories out there and sometimes that can get lost.
05:10You know, there's a lot of a lot of diversity out there in the community. And, you know,
05:15I think we tend to focus on the, I guess, the more alarming things that we find there.
05:21But, you know, we wouldn't want to distract from the fact that Australia is overall still
05:27doing reasonably well. Most people are living pretty, pretty good lives. You know, obviously
05:32things have been a bit tougher in in more recent times. And, you know, particularly
05:36now we're seeing that the cost of living rises really biting hard. And but, yeah, I think
05:42we wouldn't want to lose sight of the broader context that Australia is a pretty well functioning
05:50society with still lots of room for improvement.