Food insecurity and housing stress rise despite record employment, HILDA report finds

Food insecurity and housing stress rise despite record employment, HILDA report finds

Eighteen per cent of Australians aged 15 and over experienced food insecurity in 2024, up from 13.7 per cent in 2020, according to a major national survey report released on Thursday.

The 2026 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Annual Statistical Report found stagnant wages and higher living costs cancelled out record employment in 2024, pushing more people into financial and housing stress.

"The post-pandemic shock to cost-of-living is clear, and we saw more people reporting an increase in fatigue, stress about their housing situation, and difficulties putting food on the table," said lead author Inga Lass, a senior research fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

Half the people facing food insecurity in 2020 were still facing it in 2024, said Roger Wilkins, a professorial fellow at the institute and co-director of the HILDA Survey project. Single-parent families were most at risk.

In 2024, 84.4 per cent of men and 76.0 per cent of women aged 18 to 64 were employed. Those are the highest rates in HILDA's data.

Wilkins said housing stress affected 23 per cent of private renters in 2024, with a similar share in social housing. Among owners with a mortgage the figure was 9.6 per cent, the highest since 2017.

"Our earnings are not rising enough to keep up with the big increases in housing costs and other non-discretionary spending, so the average person is likely to be under more financial pressure," Wilkins said.

In the five mainland capital cities, 36 per cent of renters and 30 per cent of mortgage holders were spending more than 30 per cent of disposable household income on housing by 2024, said Kyle Peyton, a senior research fellow at the institute.

The share of Australians aged 18 to 29 living with their parents rose from 39 per cent in 2001 to 50 per cent in 2024.

Peyton said 46 per cent of girls and young women aged 15 to 24 screened in the high or very high psychological distress range in 2023. The figure for boys and young men of the same age was 31 per cent.

The report found 11.6 per cent of Australians experienced some form of cybercrime in 2024. Almost half of them lost money.

More than half of women aged 25 to 44 now hold a university degree. One in two working Australians said they had more education than their job required, the same level as in 2012, Lass said.

Couples rated the quality of their relationship at an average of 4.3 out of 5.

The survey began in 2001 and interviews more than 17,000 people a year across 9,000 households. It is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services and managed by the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne.