The size of Australian households has declined over the past five years, a shift that may have accelerated during the pandemic, increasing demand for housing and sending rents sky-high even as overseas migration fell sharply.
increasing demand for housing and sending rents sky-high even as overseas migration fell sharply.
Variation in household size – leading to the formation of more households – emerges as the mystery variable that goes some way toward explaining the puzzling fact that housing rents are soaring again after Although the number of unoccupied homes rose in raw numbers by just under 4000 to 1,043,776, it fell as a percentage of the total, from 11.2 per cent five years ago to 10.1 per cent.
The census data reveals that three-person and larger households have declined as a proportion of households. While couples have remained steady, single-person households have significantly increased, from 24.42 per cent of households in 2016 to 25.56 per cent of households in 2021.