Addressing Australia’s housing crisis gender blindness
A recent AHURI study, Gendered housing matters: toward gender-responsive data and policy making, found women’s housing pathways were often more precarious, intertwined with social and economic inequalities, and frequently uncaptured in data. A key concern was a blind spot on homelessness.
Women’s homelessness increasing
Census data shows homelessness among women rising, from 49,017 in 2016 to 53,974 in 2021. While men remained more likely to experience homelessness, rates of homelessness among women grew 10% over this period, compared to 2% for men. The most dramatic increases included a 20% rise in the number of homeless women aged 35 to 44, and nearly 18% increase among teenaged women aged 12-18.
AHURI’s study into gendered housing matters found women were often invisible in homelessness data, suggesting the crisis may be underestimated. Women were also found to self-manage homelessness differently from men or did not identify as homeless, impacting data collection, and many avoided obvious rough sleeping, and so were under-estimated in street counts. Researchers found older women in particular often avoided or were ineligible for Specialist Homelessness Services, leaving their homelessness underreported and no national dataset that captured their risk.
Women among top users of social housing and homelessness services
AHURI’s 2026 study, Workplace trauma on the social housing and homelessness frontline, found women were among the top three types of client frontline workers supported, indicating higher proportional need. Women seeking help from this sector were also more likely to have suffered certain traumas, including sexual assault.
More likely to be single parents – and to be struggling
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data to June last year shows women remained more likely to be raising a child on their own, with single mothers comprising 77% of Australia’s 1.2 million one-parent families. AHURI’s investigation into gendered housing matters highlights higher housing insecurity among single mothers, regardless of whether they were younger or older parents.
Researchers also found single mothers were overrepresented in social housing. Single parents were also more likely to rely on private rentals due to caring roles limiting work hours, job type, and income — reducing their wealth and homeownership prospects.
Source: AHURI report, Gendered housing matters: toward gender-responsive data and policy making
These barriers extended beyond single parents: unequal employment, pay gaps, and work lives fragmented due to having children and raising a family were shown to shape women’s housing experiences across the board.
A continuing gender pay gap reduces affordability
ABS data shows while Australia’s gender pay gap is now the lowest in history, women still earn hundreds of dollars less on average per week. In November 2025, the full-time adult average weekly earnings across all industries and occupations was $2,147.80 for men and $1,900.60 for women. That meant women earned $247.20 less than men each week, or $12,854.40 per year, and that for every dollar on average men earned, women earned 88 cents.
Reduced ability to afford a home
The 12% earnings gap between women and men places women in a structural disadvantage. As a result, finding and paying an affordable rent (no more than 30% of income) is more difficult for single women.
Similarly, women on an average female weekly income will find it harder to save a deposit. An averaged priced property in Australia cost an estimated $1,045,400 in December 2025. A male worker on average weekly earnings that saved 30% of his weekly income would take 324 weeks (just over 6 years and 2 months) to save a 20% deposit. Meanwhile, an average female worker would need to save for 367 weeks (just over 7 years) to achieve the same deposit.
The added difficulty many women face in building a home deposit was highlighted in 2025 AHURI research into shared equity programs in Australia. A number of the shared equity program participants interviewed mentioned that, as unpartnered women, they believed they would not have been able to purchase their current home without the scheme supporting them. In these cases, women mentioned the lack of family support available to them as a barrier to regular home ownership. A quote from one program participant encapsulated the challenge unpartnered women can face:
“There was no Plan B. I wouldn’t have been able to buy at all. So I’d be renting. And it’s a bit of a nuanced point, but being a young woman, the financial independence is really important to me. You know, at this point in my life, I really don’t want to have my financial wellbeing dependent on a partner.”
Retired women have fewer resources
Persisting pay and earning opportunity differences for women, such as more time out of the workforce due to caring responsibility and a higher rate of part-time work, also impacted retirement. In 2022, women’s median superannuation balances at retirement were around 23% lower than for men, meaning they had less capacity to pay off a mortgage. More recent data from 2024-25 showed 30% of retired women relied on their partner’s income to meet their living costs at retirement (compared to 9% of retired men). This suggests women continue to retire with less retirement savings, which would often likely translate to greater housing stress.
Heightened risk of abuse, and ultimately asset loss
AHURI’s study into gendered housing matters found experiences such as domestic and family violence were primarily (although not exclusively) experienced by women and children. This is reinforced by recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) statistics, updated in February, which found 1 in 4 women had experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner since the age of 15, compared to 1 in 14 men.
Greater exposure to domestic abuse has been shown to have substantial knock-on effects to victim’s housing: AIHW estimated about 2 in 3 women moved away from home when their relationship with a violent partner they lived with ended. Of those that moved away, 7 in 10 left property or assets behind.
Migrant women at particular risk
A 2025 study into housing vulnerabilities among temporary visa holders found women and children without permanent residency who experienced domestic abuse were at particular risk of housing difficulties. AHURI researchers found housing support for this group was fraught over the longer term, as options were lacking beyond initial crisis accommodation, and migrant women’s lack of income was an issue in terms of how long they could stay at shelters.
Women likely to be disadvantaged by PropTech when applying for rentals
New technologies being utilised by property managers and landlords to automatically rank and vet rental tenancy applicants presents another potential challenge for female renters. An AHURI investigation focused upon this type of PropTech, published this year, found some women may face disadvantage if screening programs’ rankings penalised single-parent households, applicants with interrupted work histories, or lower-wage applicants.
The research advocated for anti-discrimination legislation, particularly around rental application data related to protected factors such as race, gender and disability.
Understanding the problem to fix it
Returning to AHURI’s report on gendered housing matters – it ultimately found no comprehensive approach to understanding gender and its role in housing currently exists in Australia, nor internationally. The research developed the Gendered Housing Framework as a way to assess gender-responsiveness in housing and homelessness policy and practice, including data adequacy in census, survey and administrative data collections.
