Kelvin Davidson: CoreLogic Chief Property Economist on the connection between the gender pay gap and home ownership

Home ownership rates among women have gone up, but there's concern financial barriers are holding them back from investment properties.

The latest edition of CoreLogic’s Women & Property Report shows that 23 percent of women had sole ownership of a property compared to 20.9 percent for men, with mixed-gender ownership accounting for 56 percent.

CoreLogic Chief Property Economist Kelvin Davidson says the gender wage gap is still impacting women's salaries.

"There's a female deficit, I guess, when it comes to investment properties. So great, females own a proportionately higher number of owner-occupied properties, but there is also a deficit when it comes to investment properties."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New figures show more women own their own homes than men.
Core Logics twenty twenty five Women in Property report shows
twenty three percent of women had sole ownership of a property,
compared to twenty point nine percent for men. Mixed gender
ownership presumably married couples, was fifty six percent. Calvin Davidson's
their Core Logic chief property economist. He's with me high

(00:22):
Calvin good good to be on the show. Did that
number surprise you? And what's behind it? Do you know?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
No? I mean the number didn't really surprise me. I
suppose the number we've been probably highlighting a little bit
more as a female deficit. I guess when it comes
to investment property, so great, females own a proportionately higher
number of owner occupied properties, but there is also a
deficit when it comes to investment properties, and that's sort
of the number we've been highlighting. I think is when

(00:50):
you boil through all the numbers, what you really come
down to is the gender age cap in the fact
that females unfortuately do earn less for similar jobs, that's
probably holding back their investment into properties. So something needs
to be looked at.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Maybe it's because more of them own their primary home though.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, well, to some extent, the underlying some of that
owner occupier number will be also an affordability challenge in
the sense that we're seeing more apartments being owned by females,
so that I think, even though the overall owner occupier
share is a little bit higher, when you dig into
the types of properties that come in there, they are

(01:27):
perhaps a little bit smaller, cheaper. That's where the affordability
challenges come in. So, yeah, digging into the numbers does
I think still reveal some challenges.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
You mentioned that women don't own as many rental properties
do they want to.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, well, that's certainly what's coming through. We've also revealed
some survey based data this year which is new to
the previous reports we've done. And yes, certainly the attitudes
are there. A very similar proportion of females report home
ownership or property ownership in general is very important, the
very similar proportion, so the attitude is definitely there. So

(02:02):
then you start to dig into the numbers and say, well,
the attitudes there was not coming through them, they're in
results and nothing really have to come down to financial
resources come down to those lower incomes that gender wage
gap and again a policy area that.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, but I mean is it the gender wage gap?
Because I was thinking about this and I think just
in my own life about girls and women that I'm
friends with, more often than not they go to university.
My male friends are more inclined to go into a
trade they're earning them Guys are earning money from a
younger age. We know that women are more likely to
go to university, therefore delaying their earning potential, and then

(02:42):
our rental property is obviously going to be a long
way off that. Have you taken these types of things
into a consideration, Well, I.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Mean, the gender wage gap does take into account different
micks of employment, different mix of education, and that sort
of thing, in the sense that gender wage gap looks
at the genders and jobs and simply when you see
females doing a similar job to males but being paid less.
So that's that's the sort of gender wage cap. Now,
it's not the only explanation, as you live. It doesn't

(03:11):
explain everything. I think there's there's a little bit of
evidence coming through on the survey that perhaps it is
to do with understanding of the property buying process for example,
So there's there's perhaps hints and here of anything that
we can do to educate both males and females really
about the difficulties of buying property, the process that's required

(03:32):
that will help as well. So those things help, but
I think generally you would really come down to financial
resources as being a key factor here and something now
Unfortunately through time that females leag behind on that. So
it's a longering a show. I guess the policymakers to
really be looking at all.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Right, Calvin, thanks for your time. We'd love to know
what people think of that's Calvin Davidson, Core Logic, chief
Property Economists with us here on news Talk. Semb nine
to ninety two is the number to text. If you're
a woman listening to this and you've got your your
own home, well congratulations, you're actually doing better than men.
And when it comes to home ownership, this is owner
occupied homes only. But i'd love to know did you

(04:11):
want your own home from a young age? Did you
see that was that you're objective? And men? What's going on?
Why aren't you up there with the women? For more
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