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The gender pay gap continues to create a barrier for women to break into and boost their presence in the housing market, according to the latest study by CoreLogic.
CoreLogic's Women and Property: State of Play report showed that the gender pay gap substantially affects the ability of women to buy their own homes, especially when it comes to saving for a mortgage deposit.
Considering the average full-time earnings in Australia, it would take women an additional 10 months to come up with the typical 20% deposit for a median-priced dwelling.
"The implications of this are vast. It means men get access to housing sooner, they have more time in market, and therefore have greater wealth accumulation as well," said Milena Malev, general manager for financial services and insurance solutions at CoreLogic International.
This has a significant effect in retirement as property ownership can help provide a source of wealth accumulation to help maintain living standards, service health or aged care costs or support intergenerational wealth.
“This wealth gap becomes a particular challenge around retirement, and it’s well documented that if you have rental or mortgage costs at the time you retire, then you have a much higher incidence of falling into poverty," Malev said.
Malev said given that property ownership and wealth-building are "inextricably linked" to income, institutions must provide policies that would include a play to pay parity.
"For government, there are implications for the provision of social support. Women are more likely to exit property ownership after the dissolution of a marriage and that’s why we see women over 50 among the highest growing rates of homelessness in Australia," she said.
Malev added: "Savings and investment solutions from lending institutions for those on lower and single incomes can help provide a leg up into the wealth accumulation that is associated with property ownership."
The study found that while women make up 60% of single-parent or lone adult household, sole property ownership among women lag substantially. Regional Western Australia recorded the biggest gap in property ownership. Women represented 19.8% of all sole property ownership, lower than the 29.3% ownership rate among men.
On the other hand, Melbourne and regional Victoria registered the highest level of parity in ownership rates. The gap separating men and women was less than 2 percentage points.
Eliza Owen, head of research at CoreLogic, said areas where women have higher rates of property ownership, also generally have higher median household incomes.
"This reinforces the view that women can actually have a higher propensity to buy property than men, therefore women with higher incomes have more success," she said. "Given there’s a high level of equity held in real estate, if you don’t own property, that’s a big source of household wealth and security you don’t have access to."
