HILDA survey: median Australian wealth is falling – Editor

Despite the recent boom in natural resources within Australia, citizens of our country are becoming less wealthy – according to a Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research report: ‘The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia [HILDA] Survey‘ [1,2]. Some of the findings are:

1. Although median household wealth grew by 37.8% within the period 2002 to 2006 (prior to the global financial crisis), from 2006 to 2014 it actually shrank by 1.2%.
2. There has been no real increase in median incomes since 2009.
3. During the period 2002 to 2014, the proportion of households who own their own home has fallen by 3.3% and the proportion with investments has fallen by 9.9%.
4. Parents using childcare are, in real terms, paying more than double the fees they were paying in 2002. This is despite the reliance of 25 per cent of families on grandparents for childcare (who provide an average of 14 hours of care per week).

Sources

1. http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/hilda/Stat_Report/statreport_2016.pdf

2. https://theconversation.com/what-hilda-has-to-tell-us-about-wealth-and-poverty-62717?