The former secretary of the Australian Treasury, Ken Henry, believes Australian households are struggling, wedged between rising housing costs, insecure work arrangements, and low wage growth:
I’m no longer so comfortable with the increasing ‘casualisation’ of the labour market .
Over the past 40 years Australian house prices have approximately quadrupled in real terms (i.e., after allowing for inflation). Over the same period of time, the proportion of working age females (15 years or more) with a job has increased by 45 per cent. For decades we have been hearing that families can’t afford to buy a house unless both adults are working.
