Measuring Housing Stress: How Much do Definitions Matter?

There has been extensive debate in Australia in recent years about the most appropriate measure of housing stress. This article presents estimates of housing stress in Australia and examines the comparative effects of various definitions on the proportion of households in housing stress. Six measures of housing stress are tested, all with different types of income and criteria. Up-to-date estimates of housing stress at the national and state/territory level are produced from the 2005-2006 Survey of Income and Housing from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. These estimates are then compared to identify the least sensitive indicator of housing stress across household tenure type.