Single, older women in Australia have emerged as a group vulnerable to housing insecurity and as being in danger of homelessness in their old age. Wage inequality and interrupted working lives due to childcare responsibilities are contributing factors and have meant that women, especially single women, have a decreased capacity to acquire housing equity or retirement savings in their own right. In addition, social changes that permit women to choose whether or not they marry and which also enable serial monogamy means there has been significant growth in the number and proportion of single, older women in the population. These social changes mirror the lives of the post-Second World War baby boomers and the cumulative impacts are now being felt as this generation approaches retirement. These women now face further disadvantage in the housing market as purchase prices and rental costs have risen, reflecting a number of factors including a shortage of housing supply.
The survey sought information about this group and their plans for retirement, and in particular their interest in purchasing a \u27equity land trust\u27 (ELT) apartment. As a model of affordable housing the ELT model excludes the cost of land and the scheme maintains properties as being perpetually affordable. Findings revealed that a third were in housing stress and could not contemplate purchasing even if subsidised. A minority had already purchased but were not confident that they would be able to hold onto their homes. The rest had sufficient incomes to purchase an ELT apartment but few had savings and many had debt. This tended to reflect pessimism about ever purchasing and resulted in living for the moment. However the majority were very interested the potential to purchase affordable housing, and indicated this would change their savings habits
