The Structure and Distribution of Household Wealth in Australia
Bruce Headey (),
Mark Wooden and
Gary Marks
Additional contact information
Bruce Headey: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne
Gary Marks: The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)
Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne
Abstract:
2002 saw the first large-scale survey of household wealth carried out in Australia since World War I. Conducted as part of the second wave of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (or HILDA) Survey, it covered all main components of asset portfolios and debts. This paper uses these data to provide an overview of the structure and distribution of household wealth in Australia, providing estimates of the mean and median levels of household wealth by type of asset or debt, and estimates of the degree of inequality of wealth holdings. The data confirm that wealth is very unequally distributed, with the bottom half of the distribution owning less than 10 per cent of total household net worth (assets less debts), while the wealthiest 10 per cent account for 45 per cent of total net worth. The paper also includes an analysis of the factors associated with household wealth that indicates that wealth is significantly related to a range of factors including age, country of birth, parental occupational status, education, marital status, working hours, income, self-reported savings behaviour, a willingness to take risks and even various lifestyle behaviours, such as smoking and alcohol consumption.
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2004-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)
Downloads: (external link)
http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/downloads ... series/wp2004n12.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2004n12
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010 Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sheri Carnegie ().