Nice, clear short note. Cameron you could (should?) write a whole article about how thing X which is purportedly about Y is really about demographics. In the US, I found that declining mobility rates (ie, more people staying in their homes for more than 10 years) is happening across age groups, but the trend in the aggregate is strongly driven simply by people getting older (old people tend to move less frequently).
There's so many moving pieces in household formation. This explanation is good but I'd love to see if the age kids move out of home matters. That's changed dramatically. As has the age people have kids. In time B, the people with kids might be as old as the empty nesters in time A.
Housing stock matters too. e.g. Back in the day, young people moved into share houses. Four 20-year olds in a big rambling house in the inner city. Now that house has caught a $900k reno, been profiled in Vogue Living, and a barrister lives there with her Professor husband amid the pashmina throws and the original artworks. Their kids, if they've moved out, now live in apartments. And not with 3 housemates. So there's more dwellings per capita, but each with less capacity.
I feel like these pieces push and pull in different directions.
There are certainly some subtleties to this. And you are right that the average age of family formation is higher now. But on the main point you make, that there are more dwellings per capita but each with less capacity, seems wrong to me. Average number of bedrooms per dwelling has grown consistently for decades, despite the compositional change to more apartments in the total housing stock. So there are more, bigger, better dwellings per capita today than at any point in history. As the boomers age, and the average number of people in their households falls further, we will see a similar (but more subdued) trends to those European countries and Japan.
I love the image of a “barrister and professor amid pashmina throws and original artworks”..... 😂😂 It’s so dramatic, I think....as I fling my pashmina around my shoulders.
Nice, clear short note. Cameron you could (should?) write a whole article about how thing X which is purportedly about Y is really about demographics. In the US, I found that declining mobility rates (ie, more people staying in their homes for more than 10 years) is happening across age groups, but the trend in the aggregate is strongly driven simply by people getting older (old people tend to move less frequently).
There's so many moving pieces in household formation. This explanation is good but I'd love to see if the age kids move out of home matters. That's changed dramatically. As has the age people have kids. In time B, the people with kids might be as old as the empty nesters in time A.
Housing stock matters too. e.g. Back in the day, young people moved into share houses. Four 20-year olds in a big rambling house in the inner city. Now that house has caught a $900k reno, been profiled in Vogue Living, and a barrister lives there with her Professor husband amid the pashmina throws and the original artworks. Their kids, if they've moved out, now live in apartments. And not with 3 housemates. So there's more dwellings per capita, but each with less capacity.
I feel like these pieces push and pull in different directions.
There are certainly some subtleties to this. And you are right that the average age of family formation is higher now. But on the main point you make, that there are more dwellings per capita but each with less capacity, seems wrong to me. Average number of bedrooms per dwelling has grown consistently for decades, despite the compositional change to more apartments in the total housing stock. So there are more, bigger, better dwellings per capita today than at any point in history. As the boomers age, and the average number of people in their households falls further, we will see a similar (but more subdued) trends to those European countries and Japan.
I love the image of a “barrister and professor amid pashmina throws and original artworks”..... 😂😂 It’s so dramatic, I think....as I fling my pashmina around my shoulders.