Women’s life course and precarious housing in older age: an Australian qualitative study

Abstract

With increasing numbers of older Australian women facing housing precarity, it is essential to understand how this social problem persists and grows despite structural change with greater participation of women in employment and education, and greater societal recognition of their rights. We drew on a life course framework to consider the interaction of personal and societal conditions to understand how older women come to be precariously housed in older age. Life history interviews with 30 older women who accessed social housing due to housing precarity were completed. The qualitative analysis identified three groups: women who were lifelong renters by choice and then struggled with private rental costs on a pension in older age; women who carried into older age accumulated disadvantage over their lives; and women who lost home ownership despite initial advantages in education, employment, and assets. Although events such as ill health can have a longstanding impact on women’s lives and housing security, it is the interaction of multiple structural and personal circumstances across the life course that result in later life housing precarity. The impact of violence including the striking effect of economic abuse on women’s housing pathways was a dominant finding in our study.

Keywords:

• Housing precarity
• older women
• economic abuse

Introduction

In Australia, increasing numbers of older women are precariously housed as they live in insecure private rental housing, with a lack of tenure, and pay unaffordable rents (Lester & Faulkner, 2020). Many face homelessness for the first time in their later years (McFerran, 2010; Petersen & Parsell, 2015). There is increasing evidence many older women experience insecure housing, dislocation, and poverty (Power & Gillon, 2021). Yet an understanding of how older women come to be precariously housed in later life despite legislative, policy and social changes that aim to enhance gender equity remains limited.

The concept of precarity is increasingly prominent in housing studies (Bates et al., 2020; Colic-Peisker et al., 2015) with research on precarious housing and wellbeing (Ong ViforJ et al., 2022), and overcrowding (McConnell, 2017). Housing precarity is understood in a range of ways with unaffordability, insecurity, inaccessibility, and quality considered central (Beer et al., 2016; Clair et al., 2019; Ong ViforJ et al., 2022). Grenier et al. (2020a) proposed precarity be considered over time with recognition of life course dynamics including disadvantage and inequality carried into later life. This paper combines precarity, older age, and the lens of life course to examine how housing precarity for older women endures despite exponential growth in women’s participation in employment and education and altered roles in society and families. It draws on data from a qualitative research project exploring the life history of older women who experience housing precarity in their later years.

Background

In Australia tenants are disadvantaged by rental being a minority tenure, limited regulation of private landlords and prevailing home ownership norms and aspirations (Bates et al. 2020; Pawson et al. 2020). Without home ownership this group do not have the store of wealth to support financial security in retirement (Chomik & Yan 2019). Older people reliant on the aged pension who rent privately are particularly disadvantaged in Australia’s housing system. With Australia’s relatively low rate of aged pension, older renters have high after housing poverty rates (Morris, 2016; Petersen & Aplin, 2023). Alongside a fixed low income, private renters have relatively little security of tenure when compared to international best practice (Hulse et al., 2011; James et al., 2022). Social housing prioritises those with high support needs (Flanagan et al., 2019; Parsell et al., 2022) and thus limits eligibility for many older renters.

Recent figures show that 41% of older Australians who live in private rental housing face poverty due to the costs of rent (Davidson et al., 2020). Australians on the aged pension can afford only 0.4 per cent of private rentals (Bourke & Foo, 2023). The number of older people renting privately in Australia is projected to double over the next 30 years due to demographic change, decreasing home ownership, and the limited availability of social housing (Yates, 2015). Older Australians living in private rental housing that is inaccessible, with unaffordable rents and/or risk of eviction are precariously housed and at risk of homelessness (Morris, 2016; Petersen & Parsell, 2015).

Modelling forecasts that rental tenure in Australia will become increasingly feminised as older single women are prone to lose out of home ownership due to marriage breakdown and widowhood (Wood et al., 2020). Canadian research also shows that housing insecurity disproportionally impacts single older women renting privately (Stewart & Cloutier, 2022) and was found to be exacerbated by marginalised employment and early experiences of trauma (O’Neil et al., 2021). In 2020, 240,000 Australian women over 55 years of age were estimated to be at risk of homelessness (Lester & Faulkner, 2020).

Older women’s housing precarity is evident given they are more likely to have first become homeless after the age of 50 years across the three countries of Australia, England, and the United States (Crane et al., 2005). The centrality of insecure tenure and unaffordable rents resulting in precarious housing and risks of homelessness for older tenants is also evident in New Zealand (Bates et al., 2020; James et al., 2022). Within Australia, older people are the fastest growing group within the homeless population with a 55% increase between 2011 and 2016 (Pawson et al., 2018). Most older Australians experiencing homelessness are largely homeless for the first time in their life due to critical issues of unaffordability, eviction and housing that does not support changes in functional limitations (Batterham et al., 2013; Petersen & Parsell 2015). For some women housing insecurity in later life is carried forward from early disadvantage (Darab et al., 2018; McFerran, 2010).

Whilst there is consensus amongst contemporary housing scholarship that the cause of homelessness is complex, with individual, interpersonal, and structural factors interacting over time (Fitzpatrick et al., 2021) the balance of factors differs for single older women. Many older women reliant on a low-income face housing precarity having experienced separation from long-term partners, poor health including mental health concerns, and/or have been subject to domestic violence (McFerran, 2010). Women who leave their home due to violence face unaffordable housing, separation from support networks, and poverty (Mayock & Bretherton, 2016). An understanding of the accumulated impact of domestic violence over the life course on housing pathways is limited (Mayock & Bretherton, 2016). Arguably, some literature focuses on the experiences leading up to their housing crisis rather than how disadvantage has accumulated over the life course (see Petersen & Parsell, 2015).

Across their life course, older women historically experienced limited welfare support, especially as family carers and single parents, limited access to education, interrupted employment, unequal pay, and limited superannuation. Arguably, social conditions including access to education, equal pay, access to welfare, and access to superannuation has benefitted many women who are currently aged over 55 years; but not those aged in their 80s and 90s. Traditional gender roles resulted in women being dependent on their partner for economic security (Patterson, Proft, & Maxwell, 2019). In Australia, supporting mother’s benefit was introduced in 1973; equal pay was enforced in 1972; and the need to remain unmarried to work in the public service ended in 1973. Further, women were able to access housing finance in the 1980s; and participated in superannuation from 1992 onwards. Since the mid 1970s, legislative and policy changes accompanied by service responses to domestic and family violence, universal health care, and no-fault divorce (Family Law Act 1975, Clth) have been enacted (Arrow, 2019; Baxter et al., 2022). Yet the housing precarity of single older women persists and grows (Lester & Faulkner, 2020), and challenges the assumption that older women will be protected by existing social programs (Grenier et al. 2020b; Tually, 2008) and access to home ownership earlier in the life course. In 2006 policies influenced by neoliberalism clawed back some of the prior welfare reforms and reduced levels of income support for single parents of school age children, primarily women (McKenzie et al., 2019). Currently, an understanding of how individual, interpersonal, and social opportunities and constraints across the life course interact to result in precarious housing for women in later life is limited. The research addressed the following question: How do women come to be precariously housed in older age?

Theoretical and conceptual framework

A life course theoretical framework (Dannefer & Settersten, 2010) combined with a housing pathways approach (Clapham, 2005) provides the opportunity to shed light on how the interaction between individual life experiences and social structures impact on later life housing precarity (Kendig & Nazroo, 2016). This approach avoids a snapshot understanding and follows Settersten (2020) who notes that precarity must be understood with a long view incorporating understandings of cumulative advantage and disadvantage, turning points, agency, and structural change. A sociological life course approach draws attention to the interaction of social and historical events, agency, timing, and linked lives, and assists in understanding variations in pathways and outcomes (Baxter et al., 2022). Our study pays particular attention to women’s housing pathways and outcomes. A housing pathway approach (Clapham, 2005) takes a long-term view of housing trajectories. This approach does not assume a single linear pathway and examines cumulative inequalities which contribute to and compound housing insecurity (Izuhara, 2015; Skoba, 2015). The key concepts inherent in the life course framework guided the research design and approach to the interviews and the analysis.

Research design and participants

This article reports on data from a qualitative study using a biographical method to examine how 30 older women came to be precariously housed in later life. The study received ethical approval from the University of Queensland (#2016001311).

Recruitment through one social housing provider where residents are assessed as being in housing crisis at the time of tenancy approval ensured the participants met the criteria of housing precarity. The provider mailed an introduction letter and information sheet to single women residents aged 55 years and over on behalf of the authors. If interested in participating, the women independently phoned or emailed the research team. The initial phone contact with potential participants enabled checking eligibility, and discussion about the nature of a life history interview, and the renumeration of $50. Given the clear selection criteria all women in contact were eligible and willing to be interviewed. All participants identified as women, resident for at least six months, relied on a government benefit for income, and held limited financial resources. On receipt of verbal consent, a meeting of one to two hours was organised. Participants provided written consent at the commencement of the interview. The housing provider had no knowledge of who participated in the study.

All interviews were conducted over the spring and summer of 2016/2017. Interviews were predominately in the participants’ units. The renumeration was given to the participants at the commencement of the interview and is informed by care ethics that demonstrates respect through a payment (Warnock et al., 2022). The interview involved preparing a genogram and timeline with the participant, noting dates of significant life course events such as employment, education, family formation, separation, divorce, and migration. The timeline paid particular attention to housing pathways with the interview exploring intergenerational relationships and access to family support, transitions such as changes in work and family responsibilities, trajectories such as changes in housing tenure, and significant turning points including illness or bereavement. Working together to construct a timeline is considered helpful in assisting participants to recall complex and challenging pasts (Belli et al., 2009). The interview was audio-recorded and transcribed. Both the timeline and transcription were utilised in the data analysis.

The purpose of the qualitative analysis was to explore older women’s perspectives on how they came to be precariously housed in older age. The analysis was informed by the conceptual frameworks of life course and housing pathways, knowledge of the housing stress experienced by low-income older renters, and an understanding of Australian social policy and gender inequality over time. The authors have researched in the area of older people, disadvantage, and housing for decades. While our life stories are very different to the women who participated in the study, we have a disciplinary background of social work and social policy, and extensive research experience with respect to housing and older people.

The thematic framework approach of Ritchie et al. (2003) entailed gaining an overview of the data, writing individual case summaries highlighting key events, turning points, trajectories and their impact on housing; identifying emergent themes within and across cases; examining exceptions; charting themes into a matrix encompassing all interviews and then examining the life course events and trajectories within the transcripts and building on the broad themes identified in the previous step. Events and trajectories were compared and examined to reveal recurring themes and interactions between personal circumstances, life course shifts, individual agency, social and policy conditions that impacted on the women’s housing pathways.

Three broad groups of housing pathways, events, and associated trajectories that affected women’s housing pathways were identified, reviewed and refined by the authors. The ongoing discussions about analysis, refinement of the matrix, alongside checking understandings with participants during the interviews assisted with rigour.

The participants ranged in age from 55 to 91 years. Two women, aged 58 and 86, were frail and received home care. The sample included diversity in age, former partner status, childbearing, education, employment, health but limited diversity in ethnicity. Twelve women identified ongoing mental health concerns because of trauma. Table 1 outlines the participants’ demographic profile.

Table 1. Profile of participants.

Age in years	Number
55-59	8
60-69	14
70-79	5
80 and over	3
Partner status
Formerly married/partnered	26
Never married	4
Country of Birth
Australia	23
New Zealand	3
Canada	1
England	1
India	1
South Africa	1
Income Source
Aged Pension	15
Disability Support Pension	15
Qualifications
No post school qualifications	11
Vocational qualifications	12
Tertiary/ post school qualifications	7
Housing History
Rented only	7
Former mortgagee	16
Former homeowner	7

The study was limited to 30 women aged over 55 living in one Australian city. The findings may not apply to other locales in Australia or internationally where welfare structures and policies differ. All women in the sample were unpartnered. No woman identified as Indigenous, and most women were born in Australia and as such our sample does not represent Australia’s cultural diversity. This qualitative study provides insight into the personal and structural conditions that result in housing precarity in older age. It does not claim to represent the heterogeneity of women.

Findings

The focus of this paper is understanding how individual factors, life course trajectories, and critical events in women’s lives interact with social, policy and service systems to culminate in being precariously housed in later life. The quotes presented from the interviews demonstrate how disadvantage and opportunities accumulated in the women’s lives. Three broad housing pathways were identified, and one exception. The first group were life-long renters who chose not to buy a home; the second group experienced long-term disadvantage and were not able to pursue home ownership; and the third group were women who had or gained resources during their lives, attained home ownership but resources were lost. The term home ownership includes servicing a mortgage. In presenting the qualitative data, participants are identified by their interview number and age at the time of the interview (e.g. IV17, 86). Identifying information including details of location, ethnicity, health conditions, and sexuality were removed from quotes.

Life-long renters by choice

Three women were life-long renters by choice. All women worked in clerical, hospitality, or professions, two remained single, one married briefly, and all were childless. Whilst these women had relationships, they did not form a long-term partnership or purchase property with a partner:

lots of intimate relationships, but no relationships that were lasting …I’ve never had a fear of not being able to create a home for myself. (IV9, 59)

They did not view owning a home as part of their identity:

I didn’t even think about it, to be quite honest. Yeah, I just wanted to travel. I guess also, because there wasn’t much, most of the places were out in the suburbs, and the suburbs are just family type groupings. (IV30, 64)

Two women prioritised lifestyle choices such as travel over home ownership and continued to work professionally and rent:

I really just wanted to get into nursing so I could travel. (IV30, 64)

I spent all my money going overseas. For me it is more important to go overseas, than to buy a home. (IV17, 86)

For each of the women in this group, earlier life choices combined with a significant event and/or structural disadvantage (e.g. limited superannuation) led to precarious housing in later life. Caring for elderly parents, ill health, and forced or voluntary retirement disrupted affordable housing. For one woman a combination of all three events culminated in housing precarity in her later years. In her early thirties this participant, (IV30,64), returned to the family home to care for her frail parents. On her mother’s transfer to residential care years later, she furthered her nursing education. A work injury was a critical event that left her in a precarious position as she lived on a disability pension and was unable to afford private rental payments. One woman (IV9,59) held professional qualifications, had a secure work history, and a supportive extended family. A stroke in her early forties followed by months of hospitalisation was a critical event that altered her career and housing trajectory. Having lived with family for several years who cared for her, and then moving to rental owned by family, she remained on the social housing list for eight years before attaining tenancy. Having prioritised travel over home ownership and her working life preceding compulsory superannuation, on retirement, (IV17,86) was unable to afford market rates of rent. With the aged pension as her income, and no savings, she found it difficult to manage,

I had to live more frugally. When it [rent] went up, I just couldn’t afford it. (IV17, 86)

For this group, a mix of life choices, care responsibilities, health impacts, and structural impediments across the life course resulted in precarious housing in older age. These women did not have childcare responsibilities but one cared for frail parents and one received vital care from older parents reflecting the opportunities and constraints of linked lives across the life course. Although lifestyle choices made early in adult life were a feature of this group, structural factors including low rates of aged and disability pensions, limited availability of social housing, and high costs of private rental resulted in precarious housing in later years.

Lifelong disadvantage with few accumulated resources over the life course

A group of 13 women differed from the renters by choice as their lives were characterised by lifelong disadvantage and few opportunities to make choices. All partnered at some stage in their life. Early life was characterised by childhood trauma, a tumultuous family life, and poverty. Many left school early, one at the age of 12. All never attained home ownership, but nine women had a mortgage and were paying off a house at one time. Separation, divorce, and single parenthood resulted in mortgages not able to be sustained.

Four of the women rented privately on becoming independent from parents. For one woman becoming a parent at a young age resulted in the end of her formal education and the beginning of a rented housing pathway:

I finished school in November, and in January I found out I was pregnant. I became a single mother…. it was difficult because my father was very angry with me. He said I’d disgraced his name. He transferred, which left me needing somewhere to live. I was on the dole. I did do some work, but that was only a temporary job. And because I was pregnant, no one would employ me. (IV2, 56)

Living in private rental in a remote area with her baby, this participant stated she could not obtain a single parent pension until her baby was six months old:

But I found out that I was entitled to some money from the state government. And the only way that I could get it was I had to have a letter from a solicitor to prove that I was taking the father of the child to court for child support. Well, back then it was called maintenance, which I did, and I was able to access this money. Once a week I had to go to the police station [in remote areas welfare payments were delivered at the police station], and they wrote out a cheque and I lived on that money. (IV2,56)

Some women had attained school leaving qualifications, worked casually for most of their working lives, and received the minimum wage. They reported few opportunities to accumulate assets. One woman despite working in a clerical role for close to 40 years, supporting her two sons with no support from their father was unable to attain home ownership:

Maintenance, in those days [pre Family Law Act 1975 (Clth)], you had to have a court order through your local court. And it was served on the non-custodial parent and there was a lot of abuse. And my husband was not happy with that…. he never paid maintenance. (IV11, 72)

Having rented privately all her life, at the time of retirement she could not afford private rent. This participant was not eligible for superannuation when working in the 1970s:

I said, ‘Well, can I join superannuation?’ ‘Oh no, women, when they retire, they’ll have their husband’s superannuation’. I said, ‘Well, I don’t have a husband’. (IV11, 72)

One participant, (IV5,80), attained a successful career after childhood trauma and a violent marriage. Attaining nursing qualifications in her forties whilst a single parent, she rented privately. Reliant on the aged pension on retirement, the unaffordability of rental payments was evident:

I was desperate to find a place. It was getting harder, and it was costing more. (IV5, 80)

One of the younger participants, (IV8, 55), had responsibility from the age of 15 caring for her father after her mother’s death. She successfully trained as a nurse but after working for many years experienced serious mental health problems. Working in health, or as a sex worker alternatively over many years her living circumstances included private rental, multiple hospitalisations, emergency shelters, and boarding houses:

I had nowhere else to go, so I ended up in a boarding house [low-cost single room accommodation with communal facilities]. (IV8,55)

Despite her tumultuous life, ill health, lack of family support, this participant had long periods of stable work. However, when ill and reliant on the low rate of unemployment benefits, she was evicted several times due to unpaid rent, and experienced homelessness.

Several women left formal education at a young age; for some it enabled leaving a difficult home life. One woman, (IV24, 60), revealed ‘a really violent upbringing’ and she was ‘molested by my uncles’. She left school to work at 15 characterising her independence as ‘my ticket to freedom’. This woman experienced a violent marriage and divorced at 26 with no property settlement. She secured a mortgage as a single working parent but was unable to sustain it because of limited income and parenting responsibilities. Another participant also left school at 15:

I left because being a lot of children and times were hard for Dad, and so we left at Year 10 to get a job. (IV19,61)

Leaving formal education at a young age often resulted in the women undertaking low paid work such as farm work, factory work, and retail.

For nine women in this group, violence was part of their marriage. Women commonly found it difficult to manage with low paid work and the costs of private rental alongside the ongoing trauma from living with violence for many years. One woman married at 18 years of age related:

When I mixed with other women, I discovered that their marriage wasn’t like my marriage. My marriage was like my mother’s. It was violent. (IV24, 60)

Another participant (IV23, 64) related, ‘I was actually a battered wife’. Leaving with her children after years of violence:

I think during that time, I just went down, down…I was a wreck…I couldn’t make a decision.

Working as a cleaner, this participant rented privately and was the sole provider for her children, but with insecure tenancy and unaffordable rents at the time of retirement, she was precariously housed.

One participant grew up in poverty and left school early. Her marriage was characterised by physical and economic abuse.

I ended up with two black eyes. He’d wake me up in the middle of the night and say, ‘Why aren’t you waiting up for me?’ If waited up for him, I’d get slapped around, ‘Why are you waiting up for me?’ (IV20,67)

Her husband worked in the finance sector, and during the marriage they accumulated several properties. However, she received no property settlement due to economic abuse:

He forced me to sign something before the divorce proceedings. Even though the lawyer said, ‘Don’t sign anything’. I just got badgered and badgered. I thought, ‘He’s going to punch me’. So, I signed it. He’s forged my signature too. I know that, because I went to draw out my little bit of family allowance and there was nothing there. But what do you do? (IV20, 67)

Another participant also reported that their house was re-mortgaged without her knowledge:

I had to sell the house and I never got any money out of it because he forged my signature and got a loan and all the rest of it. So, they [bank] just took everything. (IV23, 64)

In addition to living with violence in their childhood and marriage, many women after separation continued to experience economic abuse from their former partner. Housing assets were a prime focus of economic abuse and intimidation. With an aim to secure safety and leave an abusive marriage, some women relinquished an entitlement to assets. With a serious injury following rape in her marriage and with some money from her mother’s estate in her mid-twenties, this participant moved:

I left him the house and I left. I didn’t take a thing with me, just the kids. (IV24,60)

Having settled with work and a new home mortgaged with a deposit from an inheritance, her ex-husband continued to perpetrate violence, ‘he would come around and harass me in the middle of night, he threatened to kill me’. As a result, this participant had to sell her house and move. Women were exhausted after years of abuse.

For this group of women there were few options to accumulate assets as they struggled to support children, work, and pay rent on inadequate social security payments for sole parents. Despite exercising considerable agency in leaving violent relationships, seeking work, relocating, retraining, these women entered retirement with limited resources and dependent on an age or disability support pension to fund private rental. All were thus precariously housed. These findings highlight the spill over effects of precarity from one life stage and one domain (e.g. education, employment, family composition, housing) to another (Greiner 2020), the role of agency and linked lives, and the interplay of agency with structural impediments.

Early advantages, accumulated resources lost

Thirteen women differed from the prior two groups in that they had not been lifelong renters or had not recounted a life of early disadvantage. Most attained a higher level of education and included business owners and professionals. This group accumulated housing and other assets as part of a couple that was not able to be maintained due to changes in employment, business failures, death of a spouse, or ill health. However, for most women in this group economic abuse during their marriage or after separating was a key component that resulted in housing precarity.

It was not so much the dissolution of the marriage that resulted in housing insecurity but how the assets were divided at the time of, or after, separation. Several women related there was not an equitable property settlement at separation. A mother of two children fulltime in her care related:

I got $2,000 out of 12 years of marriage and he ended up with his superannuation, a Mercedes Benz, and a yacht. You tell me how that works? There was no settlement. He just took what he took. He told the courts he would give me $100 a week for the two kids in child support. He walked out of court and said, ‘Don’t expect that I’m going to give you that. I just told the judge that’. (IV2, 63)

One participant, (IV12, 68), related that her husband was a senior manager, and they lived in company housing with nominal rent. The couple accumulated several investment properties during their marriage, however there was only one bank account in the husband’s name to which she had no access:

I was making more money than him, that still had to go in his account, and he’d give me $2 if I wanted to get a coke. He was very manipulative. And if you didn’t like it… you got a backhand. You just put up with it. It took me 37 years to leave. (IV12, 68)

There was an inequitable property settlement after separation, but she, (IV12, 68), did not undertake legal action for a change in allocation, ‘I just wanted it finished’. She consequently invested her property settlement in her daughter’s house, with no inclusion on the title, despite legal advice to the contrary. On the sale of the house this participant received no money but did not pursue legal action:

As far as I’m concerned, it’s finished. I’ve let it go for the sake of maintaining a relationship. (IV12, 68)

Years of private renting and working followed, however due to a debilitating health condition she could not afford rent whilst on a welfare benefit and lived in share houses with no secure tenure. In social housing now, she has a close relationship with her granddaughter. These are the trade-offs considered in acting on family economic abuse.

Another participant (IV25,57) described economic abuse at the time of dissolution of the marriage. This professional couple accumulated multiple investment properties over more than a decade. With her husband’s loss of work, this participant experienced enormous stress as the breadwinner servicing multiple mortgages that culminated in mental health concerns:

I was very ill, and my husband got me to sign something, which I’m still not clear what it was. But in retrospect, I suppose it was the divorce papers. I said, ‘Can I trust you?’, but he still got the lion’s share. I’m sure people would think, ‘Why did you end up with nothing?’ But I was heavily medicated…my mind was foggy. (IV25,57)

There was a long-term impact on this participant:

I had nowhere to go. I was homeless. I was ill a long time; I’d lost so much. We lost everything, lost all our properties. I ended up with nothing. My husband got the family home, he screwed me over really, as well as deserting me when I was ill. (IV25, 57)

Two women accounted that their husbands lived with another partner whilst working overseas. They both describe economic abuse during their marriage:

I’m pretty sure that [forged signature] happened to me, but I don’t know. I believe he sold the intellectual property [from their business] and used a lot of our money, for himself and the new partner and children… In the end I ended up with no money at all. I had $10. No money, no nothing. No divorce settlement. I was a victim of crime. I couldn’t do anything about it. (IV27, 67)

Similarly, one woman’s (IV18, 70) husband mortgaged the family’s residence to assist with an offshore business without her knowledge. As the business failed the bank foreclosed on the mortgage, this participant had no money and with no experience of the social security system sold her furniture and jewellery to enable her to rent privately. She retrained, worked for many years in low paid work whilst renting. She transferred her savings and limited superannuation payout to assist her sons attain their own home. On an age pension with depleted assets, she was precariously housed.

For some women housing insecurity followed a period of ill health. However, ill health followed other key life events including leaving work, caring for frail parents, and loss of a partner. One participant, a farmhand and cook whilst travelling, secured a home mortgage in her mid-twenties. She moved back to her family home to care for her father:

My father was sick, terminally ill. He was getting worse and worse, so I had to go and see him, and I decided I would leave my job and go back to [town] because it was closer. (IV29, 56)

On his death, she continued to work and travel for several years and then settled into private rental and worked for over a decade. An eviction in her long-term rental due to redevelopment resulted in precarity and ill health:

I felt really insecure. By which time I hadn’t been working very much. I suffered very bad depression…I didn’t work for quite a long time. (IV29, 56)

Severe depression resulted in her selling her house to fund living expenses over two years, at which time she received social security. Another participant, (IV3, 64), with her husband developed properties for many years and on the death of her husband continued with the business and parented her three children. With the diagnosis of mental health issues after years of working this participant sold her home and rented privately:

I’d work seven days a week and never have any time off and it just caught up with me. So yeah, so that was probably the start of the slide. (IV3, 63)

Her resources were depleted by school fees:

I tried to keep the lifestyle we had, which was really quite good…and, of course, I didn’t have the money to do it anymore, so it was living on the borrowed money to keep up that façade. (IV3, 64)

After multiple hospitalisations, not working, maintaining the unit for her young adult children:

I was behind with the rent, so I was evicted. And I went to the homeless shelter. I would have slept on a park bench rather than ask for help, because I just felt like I didn’t want to admit how bad it was. (IV3, 64)

Despite achieving a good education and continuous work history, some women were unable to accumulate financial resources whilst paying market rates of rent. Separated from her husband in her early thirties, one participant related:

There was no such thing as property settlement with my ex. The house was sold, but I didn’t see a penny out of that. I started from scratch. (IV10, 67)

The children lived with their father, and this participant paid child support, ‘I worked all along, worked, worked’ but paying private rental in a unit large enough to accommodate the children on visits she found it difficult to manage despite having a skilled job. On her retirement in her mid-50s due to ill health, she lived as a companion free of rent. Similarly, for (IV22, 68) with a strong work history, renting privately as a single parent meant she was unable to accumulate resources,

I mean, jobs are good, but most of my money goes in rent. (IV22, 68)

The property settlement on the dissolution of the marriage resulted in:

I got some money from that. I’d put it away because it wasn’t enough to buy a house. The money dwindled. I remember the school fees were draining for us and I was struggling to pay them. (IV22, 68)

Retiring at 60 due to degenerative disease, and on social security, she states:

I took it [superannuation] out as a lump sum and I used it to finance my day-to-day living. Because at least half of my pension goes on rent. (IV22, 68)

Prior advantages had meant that some women depleted resources as they did not know how to access social security systems:

I really didn’t know what was available to me. And that was the thing, some people just don’t know. (IV25,57)

For this group despite attaining significant financial assets including home ownership during their life, housing security was lost due to bereavement, chronic illness, domestic violence, business failure, and inequitable property settlements. Many women who faced disrupted family relationships prioritised the care and support of children resulting in an inability to accumulate financial and housing resources. Domestic violence including economic abuse resulted in ongoing trauma and also reduced women’s capacity to accumulate assets. This group adds insight into the role of violence, the failures of the family court system, and inadequate support provided to sole parents. Having lost housing and financial assets, social security and housing policies contributed to precarious housing in older age.

Exception

One participant does not sit easily in any of the three groups. She shared many characteristics of the first group as a single woman and lifelong renter with a well-stablished career (in the finance sector). She was, however, not a renter by choice having tried unsuccessfully multiple times to secure a mortgage:

They didn’t give loans to single women. Even staff. (IV21, 62)

Her father also refused twice to be guarantor for a mortgage, a condition specified by a bank. During a period of unemployment in mid-life, and unable to manage rent, she ‘ended up in a homeless shelter’, before finding secure social housing. She demonstrates the long-term impact of structural disadvantage associated with gender.

In summary, all participants were precariously housed prior to achieving tenancy in social housing in their later years. For the women in this study, disadvantage accumulated over their life course. Their histories varied in terms of the degree of choice exercised in becoming a renter, whether they were partnered and had children, and whether disadvantage was a feature of early life or emerged in adult or later life. Although their housing pathways differed many were living in unaffordable private rental housing or were homeless when they accessed secure, affordable social housing. Whilst they had managed whilst working, being unable to unable to work due to retirement, disability or illness resulted in housing precarity. Asset accumulation including housing was limited by health and disability, caring responsibilities, family trauma, and casual and poorly paid work. Disadvantage is also linked to leaving school early due to young parenthood, single parenthood, separation, family violence, and economic abuse. In recounting a life history, the impact of social and policy conditions such as gendered roles and responsibilities, limited access to superannuation, inadequate social security, inequitable family court settlements were apparent. What was common for all women was the difficulty of affording long-term private rental while on a pension or benefit.

Discussion

Housing precarity for some women reflected accumulated disadvantage across the life course, for others it emerged because of a critical event such as relationship breakdown, bereavement, or a health crisis. It is not only the life stage at which housing became precarious but the social and policy context surrounding women’s life course events. The life course perspective also highlighted women’s linked lives as partners, parents and/or carers; personal matters including health and wellbeing; and agency including lifestyle choices and how all shaped their housing pathway.

The social differences in socio-economic status, age cohort, family composition, education and employment amongst our participants belie the common disadvantage of housing precarity they experienced in their later years. Whilst events such as serious health issues can have a longstanding impact on women’s lives and housing security, it is the interaction of multiple structural and personal circumstances throughout women’s lives that result in housing precarity.

The age of the women in the sample ranged from 55 to 90 years, reflecting decades in which changes in social attitudes, expectations and policy reforms aimed to support women. A life course approach allowed for understanding the accumulation of disadvantage for women despite changes in policy and social conditions across 40 years. Policy conditions that changed during these two decades included the introduction of income support policies for single parents; family law provisions in relation to divorce, property settlements and enforcement of child support payments; levels of payment of aged, disability and unemployment/sickness allowances; support for tenants and access to social housing; and recognition and support for those experiencing domestic violence. The study shows, however, that not all women benefitted from changes in policy. Older women in the sample did not have access to supporting parents’ benefit, carer payments, and no fault divorce or social attitudes supportive of single parenthood. The younger women in the sample, despite having access to the aforementioned welfare reforms were disadvantaged by low levels of income support for single parents, inequitable property settlements and problems in the implementation of child support payments (Arrow, 2019; Natalier, 2018). Health problems and periods of time on unemployment and sickness benefit also contributed to accumulated disadvantage. Timing was important for the older cohort of women in the sample in two ways. They had limited benefit from changes in social and policy conditions across their life course. They were also housed precariously as a result of longevity. The older women lived for a long period on the aged pension with rates of income and rent assistance insufficient to cover the high cost of market rents.

Social and policy conditions

The findings highlight the diversity of life course experiences and events that contribute to women’s precarious housing in older age. What is striking is the combination of structural factors across the life course that resulted in private rental housing in later life. These included working in gender differentiated roles, the impact of caring responsibilities, limited support to sole parents, barriers to securing a housing loan, low retirement income and limited superannuation, and a lack of affordable housing alternatives. These factors weakened our participants’ financial position and contributed to disadvantaged trajectories over their life course. Most women managed financially by working but on retirement or disability faced housing precarity. Some women due to trauma and ill health faced housing precarity earlier in their life course.

Older women’s single status is considered a risk factor for housing precarity in later life (Lester & Faulkner, 2020; McFerran, 2010). Most women in our study were divorced; all were unpartnered at the time of interview. Financial hardship often eases over time for most Australian divorced women (Lichtenstein et al., 2022). This was not the case for our participants. Being single resulted in higher housing costs as a proportion of income for women in our study and is confirmed in larger quantitative research (Lester & Faulkner, 2020). However, there are other social and policy issues at play contributing to disadvantage.

First, there were few alternatives to private rental housing for the women in our study. Single women despite having secure work were unable to secure loans in the 1970s because of gender bias (Arrow, 2019). Further, long-term social housing (with lower rates of rent) is not available to most due to limited stock (Pawson et al., 2020), decades of residualisation, underfunding, and targeting those with the most complex needs (Flanagan et al., 2019). Further, private rental costs were an ongoing drain on their resources over their life course. Emergency housing was important for some participants leaving domestic violence as it offered affordability and security. It is worth noting some participants did not access emergency housing on the breakdown of their relationship, or when at risk of homelessness. They sold personal assets, used superannuation if available, and stayed with friends and family to secure shelter. This reinforces the findings of Petersen & Parsell (2015) that many people in housing crisis do not access welfare and homelessness services.

Older private tenants experience a high level of financial stress and poverty (Morris 2016; Petersen & Aplin, 2023). Participants entered later life having lost or never having had a housing asset and with limited superannuation to supplement income from a pension. Most of the women’s working lives preceded compulsory superannuation. However, some women who had superannuation drew on this to help fund living expenses, the cost of moving (see Power 2022), or to support adult children. This resulted in the depletion of superannuation savings by their late sixties and reliance on Australia’s relative low rate of aged pension where the cornerstone of retirement income policy is home ownership (Yates & Bradbury, 2010).

The older women in our study were a minority in Australia that secured social housing after becoming ill, ceasing work, or retiring. This study provides greater clarity on the financial burden of rental tenure over the life course for single women most of whom are supporting or supported children. This accumulated disadvantage was evident for women who worked in skilled careers and lower paid occupations. A few women lived beyond their means (after significant events changed their life course and responsibilities) which resulted in evictions and homelessness. For most, the pattern of the high proportion of income absorbed in housing costs continued over the life course and provides further evidence that when retired and reliant on the aged or disability pension single women are unable to continue to afford renting privately (Davidson et al., 2020; O’Neil et al., 2021; Skoba, 2015).

Second, employment over their life course was insufficient to protect the women from a housing crisis. Many participants worked in gender differentiated roles which are lower paid (e.g. cleaners, aged care workers) and for some work was casual. Other women whilst in gender dominated roles had professional qualifications that provided continuing employment over their life course. A few used their vocational skills to follow their life choices including travel. However, most as single working women were unable to accumulate assets irrespective of a secure income given the high housing costs associated with private rent, affirming the findings of Sharam (2017). Some women moved in and out of the labour force due to health or caring responsibilities and were disadvantaged by low levels of income support. Structural factors including marginalised labour force histories culminate in poverty and housing insecurity for older women (O’Neil et al., 2021).

Third, the costs associated with caring absorbed most of women’s financial resources. In addition to experiencing economic abuse and a lack of child support, most participants took sole responsibility for caring for their children. Compared to fathers, mothers tend to experience greater financial losses after separation and a slower rate of recovery (Qu & Weston, 2021). While some women managed their work, lives, and parenting they were unable to accumulate resources commensurate with a recovery. A few women took responsibility for caring for elderly parents. On the cessation of caring responsibilities, as single women they faced difficulties securing and affording rental housing. As such the role of caring became a critical turning point in their housing security. For some, chronic or episodic ill health and/or disability was a critical event impacting on their ability to sustain work and accrue superannuation entitlements. The low rate of sickness and unemployment benefits, incompatible with paying market rents, also contributed to housing precarity in later life.

Domestic violence

Domestic and family violence had a long-term detrimental impact on women’s housing circumstances regardless of their socioeconomic status, the life stage in which it occurred, or whether supportive social and policy conditions existed. The legacy of intimate partner violence for some women was not only continued stalking and threats of physical harm after separation but long term harmful effects on emotional wellbeing, financial security and housing. In addition to the harmful effects of economic abuse, the structural reasons identified above including marginal employment, care responsibilities, and insecure and unaffordable tenancies jeopardised housing stability. Nnawulezi & Dones (2021) also note the link between violence and housing instability. There were exceptions in our sample where women managed, largely due to secure work, to build their lives after trauma as a child or in their marriage. However, for all, once they retired or faced a significant health event and reliant on social security, the women faced housing unaffordability.

In our sample the incidence of economic abuse in a range of forms and at different times in our participants’ life course is striking and vividly highlights the drain on women’s financial wellbeing that culminates in poverty, risk of homelessness, and mental health concerns. The failure of the processes surrounding the signing of mortgage documents, forging of participant’s signatures, and implementing property settlements and child support payments suggest that financial institutions and the Family Court failed to detect and address economic abuse. Most women in our study felt powerless, not knowing what they could do about the fraud. Some lacked sufficient information to challenge a settlement. Despite the introduction of the Family Law Act 1975 (Clth) with no fault divorce and property settlements accounting for women’s contribution to the marriage, some women in this study faced inequitable property settlements in the period following this legal reform. Maintenance orders were unenforceable (Arrow, 2019). The withholding of monetary contributions for the care of the children by former partners is a form of economic abuse (Natalier, 2018).

Our study provides qualitative evidence that economic abuse was an important factor in women’s disadvantage over their life course and adds clarity to the findings from other studies that divorce penalises women financially on a durable basis (Lichtenstein et al., 2022). Economic abuse as part of intimate partner violence receives less attention than other forms of family violence. Our study adds to increasing evidence that economic abuse results in survivors continuing to face financial insecurity for years after the relationship ends (Johnston, 2021; Voth Schrag, 2015). Further, our study confirms that perpetrators not only use economic abuse to maintain power during the marriage, but also to control an experience of poverty once women have left the relationship (Warren et al., 2019). It is not divorce per se, it is economic abuse including, coercive control and deception by former partners, that restricts women from recovering financially and contributes to housing precarity.

The gendered nature of constraints identified in labour force participation, employment opportunities, education and expectations, access to superannuation and caring responsibilities experienced by our sample was evident in prior literature (Baxter et al., 2022; Darab et al., 2018; O’Neil et al., 2021). The experience of domestic and family violence for many participants also foregrounds gender specific disadvantage over many years (McFerran, 2010; Petersen & Parsell, 2015). It also concurs with the view that it is not ageing per se but multiple influences and the cumulative effects over a lifetime that contributes to disadvantage (Baxter et al., 2022; Phillipson et al. 2020).

Conclusion

The data were collected over the summer of 2016 and 2017. Our findings remain pertinent given increasing numbers of older women are at risk of homelessness (Lester & Faulkner, 2020), evidence of the link between older renters and poverty (Davidson et al., 2020), predicted increases in older people in private rental (Yates, 2015; Wood et al., 2020) and unprecedented increases in housing costs (Commonwealth of Australia, 2020). Private rental is increasingly a long-term not transitional housing option in Australia (Pawson et al., 2020). Using the approach of Grenier et al. (2020a) to precarity in later life, the life course framework allowed for an identification of spill over effects from one life stage to another, and from one domain to another, the impact of human agency, the importance of linked lives, and the impact of gendered social conditions and social policy in enhancing or constraining opportunities to attain secure housing in older age. Longitudinal studies of life course and housing trajectories using large data sets are valuable in capturing broad trends, trajectories, and broad social changes (Baxter et al., 2022; Ong Viforj et al., 2022). The value of this qualitative study is that findings are based on older women’s account of their history and how critical events, opportunities, constraints, and choices shaped their life course trajectories and housing pathways.

Although all women were precariously housed in older age, a range of transitions, trajectories and pathways to this point were identified. Some women carried forward earlier life course disadvantages; others had earlier advantages in education and employment with financial assets disrupted by divorce, economic abuse, poor health, and caring responsibilities. These findings reflect prior research (e.g. Bates et al., 2020; McFerran, 2010; Darab et al., 2018; O’Neil et al., 2021; Sharam 2017). Our study adds insight into a third smaller group, childless women who rented by choice in earlier life and experienced difficulty when unable to work and reliant on a pension/benefit income confirming the importance of a housing asset when living on a pension. Timing, life stage, and the social and policy context interact to provide opportunities and constraints. Despite advances in the 1970s in access to education, equal pay, supporting parent payments, no fault divorce and superannuation, the women in our study experienced precarious housing in later life. For some older women these policy initiatives post-dated critical events; for others they were insufficient to moderate the effects of critical events, accumulated disadvantage, and limited social welfare and housing support. In the United Kingdom, Croucher, Quilgars & Dyke (2018) note that current housing and welfare systems respond poorly to life events such as relationship breakdown and the onset of poor health. This was evident in our study. Individual and life stage choices and opportunities as well structural constraints relating to gender, health status, socioeconomic disadvantage and age are highlighted. A crucial condition was to enter older age having not achieved or having lost home ownership reinforcing the work of Yates & Bradbury (2010) that home ownership is a key determinant in avoiding poverty in older age.

The research also draws attention to the impact, both short and long-term of intimate partner violence including the under-recognised issue of economic abuse on women’s financial and emotional wellbeing, and housing precarity. Economic abuse including coercive control resulted in women’s access to property from the marriage and social reforms such as parenting payments being diminished or fraudulently taken. In Australia there is strong advocacy to address domestic and family violence with growing awareness of economic abuse often an indication of coercive control both during a relationship and after separation (Glenn, 2019). However, awareness and responses to economic abuse in Australia and internationally are relatively recent. The study also supports the findings of the Women’s Legal Service Victoria (2018) that ongoing financial insecurity, disadvantage, and homelessness is heightened by the lack of timely affordable pathways to resolve family law property disputes. Recommendations to streamline court processes, improve financial disclosures, a simplified mechanism to identify and split superannuation assets, and law reform to direct courts to consider family violence in making property settlements hold promise.

The interaction of gender, poverty and housing across the life course is underscored by the increasing numbers of older women at risk of homelessness. To address this multiple policy initiatives are required. We, however, concur with Pawson et al. (2018) that structural factors including housing market trends and policies, and the support offered by welfare have the most direct impact on housing precarity. One very clear conclusion is that access to affordable housing either through social housing or rental assistance payments that reflected market rents across the life course, and higher rates of pensions and benefits would have altered the trajectory that led to precarious housing for these older women.

Ethical approval

This study received ethical approval from the University of Queensland (#2016001311).

Authors contributions

All named authors for this article made a substantial contribution to: (a) the conception and design, and analysis and interpretation of data; (b) the drafting of the article and revising it critically for important intellectual content and (c) approved the version under review.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the women who generously gave their time to take part in this study, and for the social housing provider who assisted with recruitment. Further, we are appreciative of our reviewer’s contributions to the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge the University of Queensland for funding this New Staff Grant. The University of Queensland played no role in the design, execution, analysis, and interpretation of data, or writing of the study.