Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report finds young people struggling to find full-time work, despite higher levels of education

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Young Australians are better educated than in the past but more likely to be unemployed, unmarried and living at home with their parents, a snapshot of demographic trends has found.

More young people are joining the dole queue, with the youth unemployment rate increasing from 8.8% in 2008 to 13.3% in 2014, according to the biennial welfare report card from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

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The type of work young people are engaging in has also changed, with one in two being in casual work in 2013, compared with just over one in three (35%) in 1994. For the first time, the youth part-time employment rate in 2013 exceeded the youth full-time employment rate, at 44% and 43% respectively.

The federal government has proposed a four-week freeze on jobseekers under the age of 25 accessing welfare payments, as a way of getting more young people into work.

Critics say it does not address the underlying causes of unemployment, and is “punitive”, and unlikely to pass the Senate due to a lack of support from crossbenchers.

The statistics partly reflect the trend for young people to stay in education longer, with three out of 10 young people combining work and education. Four out of five Australians aged between 15 and 24 are fully engaged in education, training or employment.

Indigenous Australians and those living in rural and remote communities, young people with disabilities, and young people who do not have English language skills are much less likely than broader society to be in education, employment and training.

Despite that, government welfare spending has been growing more slowly than economic growth, at 2.6% and 2.9% respectively.

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The biggest proportion of welfare expenditure, at $93.1bn, went to the aged pension and disability and carer payments. That compares with $7.5bn spent on unemployment benefits, and $36bn on welfare services.

The higher youth unemployment rate means parents have to wait longer before becoming empty nesters. In 1997, 50% of youngsters aged 18–24 lived with their parents. By 2012–13, this had increased to 60%.



Australians are also marrying and having children later. The number of women who got married between the ages of 20 and 24 fell from 34 per 1,000 people in 2003 to 25 per 1,000 people in 2013. Men are marrying even later in life, with the number of 20-24-year-olds marrying dropping from 19 per 1,000 to 15 over the same 10-year period.

The average age of first-time mothers in Australia has risen from 25.4 in 1971 to 30.8 in 2013. In the same year, the average age of a first-time father was 33.

Female workplace participation has gone up too, with three out of four women between 25-34 in paid work by 2014.

While the vast majority – 68% – own their own home with or without a mortgage, the number of people renting has risen dramatically from 18% in 1994, to 25%. The number of older Australians who own their homes outright has fell from 78% in 2002 to 71% a decade later.

The social services minister, Scott Morrison, was optimistic about the prospect of home ownership.

“I don’t believer the dream of owning an Australian home is dead. It is an aspiration we want to ensure every Australian feels that they can work towards,” he told reporters in Canberra when launching the welfare report.

The percentage of Indigenous Australians who own their homes rose from 22% in 1994 to 30% in 2013.

Domestic violence continues to be the primary driver of homelessness in Australia, with the vast bulk of people seeking homelessness services being women and children.

Family violence is much worse for Indigenous women – they are 34 times more likely to be admitted to hospital due to domestic violence than the wider public.