They are coming of age in the middle of an almighty inflationary shock,with numerous overseas conflicts in the background. Those wars came after the roiling waves of a once-in-a century global pandemic,which followed a series of floods,fires and droughts of astounding power.
Generation Zoom have already been through a lot,but their biggest challenge lies ahead.SMH
Each of these events alone counts as a generation-shaping crisis. Yet Generation Zoom has one ace left. They are destined to become the most educated Australians ever,graduating from universities,TAFEs and apprenticeships in record numbers.
Education,we have believed for more than a century,is the ticket out of trouble. The great leveller. The passport to prosperity. But fate may have another twist for Generation Zoom. They might become the most educated and the least equal.
Why? Because inherited privilege is catching education as a predictor for who will gather the most assets from a lifetime of work. To put it simply,housing is the problem. Having parents and grandparents with a property portfolio is beginning to matter more than getting a degree.
Home ownership is a major contributor to a young person’s ability to start a family and pursue a career. Today,many people will spend their entire lifetime just trying to reach that starting line. The prospect of owning a home is now more remote for more young people than it has been in generations.
The 1976 showed 51 per cent of people in NSW were home owners when they were aged 25-29 years old. But by 2016,home ownership among 25-29 year-olds had dropped to 34 per cent. And of course,some people are not able to buy or even rent a home at all.
This delay or denial of housing to young families is entrenching an intergenerational wealth gap in NSW. And for young people with a home loan,paying it back now takes longer than it did 20 years ago.
While it’s not surprising that older people have paid off more of their mortgage,. In 1997-98,a typical person in their 50s would have paid off $2.61 for every $1 a person in their 30s had managed to repay. Twenty years later,the same 50-year-old would have paid back $3.33 compared to their younger contemporaries’ dollar.
Structural housing inequality like this took decades to build up. It could take that long to break down. But without action now,NSW could quickly turn into San Francisco,where middle-class people are having their lives turned on their heads by housing insecurity and homelessness.
A healthy democracy,a fair society,and a liveable city depend on everyone having a place to call home. That is why acting on the housing crisis is one of the NSW government’s most important missions.
We have begun quickly,and are acting thoroughly. We have made sure that major transport investments,like the Metro West,will see more homes built nearby. Important – as we are borrowing so much money from our children and grandchildren to build it.
We have also begun the hard work of changing the planning system to better balance.
But we need to do a lot more. The next step is to embed how we think about the future of equality when we are planning the future of our economy.
Work is about to begin on the next NSW Intergenerational Report,due for publication in 2026. Governments use this report to paint a picture of the state’s likely economic future,giving us time to make better choices.
The next version of this report will,for the first time,consider how we split wealth between generations and genders as well as between cities and regions.
The state of equality is as important to the economy as the state of the budget. We should know whether a child today can turn a lifetime of hard work into at least the same level of wealth their parents did.
Daniel Mookhey is the NSW treasurer.
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