Over the decades of available data going back to the 1980s, there have been three major departures from the trend on the metric of additional working-age persons (civilians 15 and over) per additional dwelling completion.
In each instance, in the mid-to-late 1980s, the kick-off of the ‘Big Australia’ period through to shortly after the GFC and 2022 until the present, a rental crisis was the result.
Based on the available data, which covers the period from the mid-1990s to the middle of the first year of the pandemic, we know this had a major negative impact on household formation among Australians aged 25 to 34, the key demographic for fertility rates and people starting out in households of their own.
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