Introducing A Gendered Lens
Homelessness doesn’t discriminate. But the forces that push women into homelessness are deeply gendered and shaped by lifelong inequalities.
For decades, researchers and frontline workers have warned us that women’s homelessness was increasing. They predicted this surge and now it’s here.
Recent data shows that older single women and younger adult women are the fastest growing groups experiencing homelessness in Australia.
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These statistcs aren’t result of individual failiure. They’re the entirely predictable outcomes of lifelong structural and social inequality, colliding with a housing system in crisis.
Lifelong inequality creates later in life risk
Women are more likely to work part time. They are more likely to be in low paid and insecure roles. They take an average of five years out of the workforce to provide unpaid care.
The long term consequences are stark:
43% of women work part time
Women working full time earn 18% less than men
Women retire with 47% less superannuation
Women over 60 are the lowest earning demographic group nationally
The cumulative impact of lower wages, interrupted employment and undervalued care work has left hundreds of thousands financially exposed.
A 2020 study estimated that 405,000 women aged 45 and over were at risk of homelessness. Since then rents have spiked, cost of living pressures have deepened, housing affordability has deteriorated. These pressure along with limited accessibility for older residents mean many women are living one shock away from homelessness.
Pictured: Women and Mentoring
Violence remains the leading driver
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For many women, violence forces an impossible choice: stay and remain unsafe, or leave and risk homelessness. Leaving often means sacrificing financial security and stable housing, for themselves and sometimes their children too.
Separation, divorce or the death of a partner can also expose the financial fragility created by years of lower pay, unpaid care and interrupted work. Without sufficient savings or superannuation, many women are pushed into the private rental market at the worst possible time.
The result is immediate housing insecurity. Specialist services are overwhelmed. Shelters operate at double or triple funded capacity. Women and children are turned away every night.
This collision of gendered violence, financial inequality and unaffordable housing is driving the sharp rise in women’s homelessness.
This crisis was predictable
Lower wages. Interrupted careers. Inadequate retirement savings. Gendered violence. An insecure rental market. Policy settings that have failed to keep pace.
The warning signs were clear and now the consequences are visible.
Over the next two months, we’ll bring women’s homelessness into sharper focus. We’ll examine the structural drivers, surface hidden homelessness, and direct funding to gender specific responses that meet the scale of this crisis.
Because if the causes are gendered, the solution must be too.
