Tenure specific small area estimation of housing stress in Australia

This study investigates issues on small area estimation of households experiencing housing stress in Australia with reporting the spatial analysis of the small area estimates by households’ tenure types. The statistical local area (SLA) level estimates are produced using simulated microdata from a newly developed microsimulation modelling technology (MMT), which is getting increasingly popular as an alternative methodology for small area estimation. Results have revealed that the prevalence of housing stress for the private-renter, buyer, public-renter and owner households are about 60%, 33%, 7% and 0.3% respectively. About two-thirds of these housing stress households have been resided at SLAs located in the eight capital cities of Australia, and a large number of them have been located in Sydney and Melbourne. The SLA level housing stress estimates for private renters are very high in most of the capital cities and southeast coastal regions and they influence the estimates for total renters (public and private). A quarter of the total buyer households experiencing housing stress were located into several hotspots in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. In these hotspots SLAs, supply of housing is practically limited to low and middle income households with its typical high growing trends in populations and house prices. The estimates for SLAs in Canberra are much lower than the other major cities since most of the households in Canberra have a higher income and the rent assistance programs are more accessible to most of the low income households.