The AU housing market. Unattainable for the young.

 "A median income household in Australia with a 20% deposit could afford a home of $513,000, while the national median dwelling value is $815,000, she said."

Well, it's all there in a single sentence. House prices are lapping wage growth, like Usian Bolt racing... me. A corollary to this is that a high income can now only purchase a sub-average home. What a world. Is this the Australian dream? Where a person needs to work like a Trojan for decades to get to a high income, so they can finally afford a dilapidated home.

This is where economic growth leads us; to a land of haves/have-nots. Economic growth will always lead to inequality, for a number of factors, one of which is the Cantillon Effect, which was outlined 300 years ago, which states that the closer you are to the King (government), the more of the public money you will receive.

The Baby Boomers have been in power for a couple of decades, and of course, they have morphed the economy to represent and nurture their own financial circumstances, which is the ability to purchase property back in the 60s/70s/80s, when it was dirt cheap and plentiful, and ride the wave of increasing values, until now where it is scarce.

So, for example, how would a recent migrant to Australia ever hope to purchase property?

Young people, like my kids, will only be able to own property by inheritance. My friend, his son is early 30s, with a family and 2 young kids, good paying job, and they are unable to save for a necessary down payment because they are paying $800/wk rent.

So when the Prime Minister's tout economic growth as the single measure of a functioning society, the young people are very confused, because none of that applies to them. They see property values out of touch, as they go to Woolies and spend $1.20 per potato. And then they wake up on Monday morning, to work in their causal jobs without any benefits like annual/sick/parental leave, job security, redundancy pay, career development, workplace rights, fair work benefits such as Long Service Leave, financial stability where banks see them as less secure, etc etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/08/australia-housing-market-widening-gap-income-home-values

The alarmingly trend of doctors reducing their working time

 Yes. And this trend will accelerate in the coming years. In the last decade, there are more female doctors graduating each year than males.

Look at the study linked in the article... 61% of doctors are considering reducing their time working. Unfortunately the data was not broken down by sex so we don't get the complete picture, but this is consistent with the overall societal trend of women reducing hours to have families whereas men will work until retirement. And paradoxically, the greatest threat of this shortage will be in the gyno/ob sectors where the % of female doctors is the highest. In fact, in the US, there is an anticipated shortage of 100,000 gyno/ob doctors in the coming years.

Nothing wrong with this. This is just how it is all working now, and we have to understand the effects and how to maintain proper societal healthcare under these circumstances. 

And like anything in society, the key is to get the proper data so we can make the proper decisions.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/01/almost-10-percent-of-gps-in-australia-aged-over-70-shortage