Homelessness and housing insecurity among youth in Australia: sequence analysis of housing careers

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of accommodation sequences.

			Conditional on at least one spell:
Accommodation type	Average months per person^a	Percentage of individuals with at least one spell	Average no. spells per person	Average no. months per spell
1. Your own place (rent, own, or buying)	15.76	83.51	1.53	12.37
2. Your parents’ home	5.54	48.02	1.37	8.39
3. The home of other relatives	3.32	33.61	1.41	7.00
4. The home of friends	2.92	42.38	1.46	4.72
5. A caravan, cabin, or mobile home	0.49	8.56	1.17	4.93
6. Boarding/rooming house or hostel	0.64	8.98	1.28	5.57
7. A hotel or motel room	0.04	2.51	1.25	1.31
8. Foster, residential, or kin care	0.01	0.21	1.00	4.00
9. Squatting in an abandoned building	0.06	0.42	2.00	6.67
10. Emergency or crisis accommodation	0.41	8.77	1.12	4.23
11. Sleeping rough	0.24	7.52	1.31	2.42
12. Hospital, nursing home, health, or other treatment facility (rehabilitation)	0.13	2.71	1.31	3.67
13. Juvenile/youth detention, prison or remand	0.13	2.71	1.15	4.29
14. Other	0.25	3.34	1.00	7.42

N = 479 individuals; average number of accommodation types used = 2.39.

^a Average number of months per individual for all spells.

Figure 1. Example substitution operations.

Figure 2. Dendrogram.

Dendrogram using Ward’s distance to cluster individuals. Only final stages of agglomerative clustering shown.

Figure 3. Typologies (Sequence index plot and chronographs).

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of accommodation sequences, typology 1.

			Conditional on at least one spell:
Accommodation type	Average months per person^a	Percentage of individuals with at least one spell	Average no. spells per person	Average no. months per spell
1. Your own place (rent, own, or buying)	24.31	99.19	1.50	16.38
2. Your parents’ home	0.79	25.81	1.23	2.49
3. The home of other relatives	1.10	22.18	1.31	3.78
4. The home of friends	1.75	34.68	1.42	3.55
5. A caravan, cabin, or mobile home	0.27	8.06	1.15	2.88
6. Boarding/rooming house or hostel	0.66	7.26	1.28	7.16
7. A hotel or motel room	0.04	2.82	1.43	0.97
8. Foster, residential, or kin care	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
9. Squatting in an abandoned building	0.09	0.40	3.00	7.56
10. Emergency or crisis accommodation	0.51	10.48	1.08	4.48
11. Sleeping rough	0.18	6.85	1.29	1.98
12. Hospital, nursing home, health, or other treatment facility (rehabilitation)	0.10	2.02	1.00	5.13
13 Juvenile/youth detention, prison, or remand	0.06	1.61	1.00	3.58
14. Other	0.05	1.21	1.00	4.11

N = 248 individuals; average number of accommodation types used = 2.23.

^a Average number of months per individual for all spells.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics of accommodation sequences, typology 2.

			Conditional on at least one spell:
Accommodation type	Average months per person^a	Percentage of individuals with at least one spell	Average no. spells per person	Average no. months per spell
1. Your own place (rent, own, or buying)	9.19	85.58	1.73	6.21
2. Your parents’ home	5.09	58.65	1.39	6.23
3. The home of other relatives	3.34	42.31	1.61	4.89
4. The home of friends	7.41	69.23	1.54	6.94
5. A caravan, cabin, or mobile home	1.40	14.42	1.20	8.07
6. Boarding/rooming house or hostel	1.16	21.15	1.32	4.15
7. A hotel or motel room	0.07	1.92	1.00	3.83
8. Foster, residential, or kin care	0.04	0.96	1.00	4.00
9. Squatting in an abandoned building	0.04	0.96	1.00	4.00
10. Emergency or crisis accommodation	0.50	11.54	1.17	3.71
11. Sleeping rough	0.56	12.50	1.46	3.07
12. Hospital, nursing home, health, or other treatment facility (rehabilitation)	0.25	4.81	1.80	2.85
13 Juvenile/youth detention, prison, or remand	0.14	1.92	1.00	7.33
14. Other	0.73	8.65	1.00	8.48

N = 104 individuals; average number of accommodation types used = 3.35.

^a Average number of months per individual for all spells.

Table 4. Descriptive statistics of accommodation sequences, typology 3.

			Conditional on at least one spell:
Accommodation type	Average months per person^a	Percentage of individuals with at least one spell	Average no. spells per person	Average no. months per spell
1. Your own place (rent, own, or buying)	2.21	46.56	1.21	4.13
2. Your parents’ home	3.71	48.84	1.62	4.69
3. The home of other relatives	21.06	100.00	1.49	14.15
4. The home of friends	1.61	41.86	1.61	2.39
5. A caravan, cabin, or mobile home	0.10	2.33	1.00	4.33
6. Boarding/rooming house or hostel	0.22	2.33	1.00	9.33
7. A hotel or motel room	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
8. Foster, residential, or kin care	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
9. Squatting in an abandoned building	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
10. Emergency or crisis accommodation	0.33	4.65	1.00	7.00
11. Sleeping rough	0.08	4.65	1.00	1.67
12. Hospital, nursing home, health, or other treatment facility (rehabilitation)	0.02	2.33	1.00	1.00
13 Juvenile/youth detention, prison, or remand	0.60	9.30	1.50	4.33
14. Other	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

N = 43 individuals; average number of accommodation types used = 2.60.

^a Average number of months per individual for all spells.

Table 5. Descriptive statistics of accommodation sequences, typology 4.

			Conditional on at least one spell:
Accommodation type	Average months per person^a	Percentage of individuals with at least one spell	Average no. spells per person	Average no. months per spell
1. Your own place (rent, own, or buying)	5.56	54.76	1.41	7.18
2. Your parents’ home	21.04	100.00	1.40	14.98
3. The home of other relatives	0.75	22.62	1.05	3.17
4. The home of friends	1.52	32.14	1.30	3.64
5. A caravan, cabin, or mobile home	0.25	5.95	1.20	3.44
6. Boarding/rooming house or hostel	0.14	2.38	1.00	6.00
7. A hotel or motel room	0.03	3.57	1.00	0.78
8. Foster, residential, or kin care	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
9. Squatting in an abandoned building	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
10. Emergency or crisis accommodation	0.09	2.38	1.50	2.44
11. Sleeping rough	0.10	4.76	1.00	2.08
12. Hospital, nursing home, health, or other treatment facility (rehabilitation)	0.12	2.38	1.00	5.00
13 Juvenile/youth detention, prison, or remand	0.11	3.57	1.00	3.11
14. Other	0.36	4.76	1.00	7.50

N = 84 individuals; average number of accommodation types used = 2.39.

^a Average number of months per individual for all spells.

Table 6. Individual characteristics by typology.

		Typology
		1	2	3	4	All	p Value^d
N		248	104	43	84	479
Initial characteristics
Age	years	19.60	19.50	18.70	19.00	19.40	0.04
Female	%	60.89	50.00	44.19	45.24	54.28	0.02
History of homelessness	%	90.32	95.19	79.07	85.71	89.56	0.02
Wave 1
Partnered	%	31.05	23.08	9.30	15.48	24.64	0.00
Divorced/separated	%	3.23	1.92	2.33	0.00	2.30	0.39
Children U18	%	26.61	22.12	16.28	9.52	21.71	0.01
Children U18 resident	%	23.39	17.31	6.98	7.14	17.75	0.00
Studying	%	24.60	25.00	32.56	32.14	26.72	0.44
Low education^a	%	15.32	15.39	18.61	13.10	15.24	0.88
High education^b	%	18.55	11.54	23.26	23.81	18.37	0.13
Unemployed	%	36.29	34.62	44.19	47.62	38.62	0.20
NILF^c	%	43.55	39.42	44.19	28.57	40.08	0.10
Wave 6
Partnership status	%	44.76	28.85	20.93	27.38	36.12	0.00
Divorced/separated	%	1.61	3.85	2.33	0.00	1.88	0.27
Has kids U18	%	54.03	36.54	32.56	29.76	44.05	0.00
Has kids U18 resident	%	45.97	21.15	25.58	25.00	35.07	0.00
Studying	%	24.19	25.00	18.60	23.81	23.80	0.86
Low education^a	%	8.87	8.65	4.65	4.76	7.72	0.54
High education^b	%	35.08	23.08	41.86	39.29	33.82	0.05
Unemployed	%	20.97	33.65	34.88	26.19	25.89	0.04
NILF^c	%	47.98	33.65	27.91	38.10	41.34	0.01

^a Less than year 10.

^b Certificate III/IV or above.

^c Not in the labour force (neither employed nor looking for work).

^d F test.

Data availability statement

The Stata code is available for inclusion as supplemental material. The data can be accessed by authorized users following application to the National Centre for Longitudinal Data Dataverse at https://dataverse.ada.edu.au/dataverse/ncld.