Are Australians born in the 1990s worse off at the same age?

Claims that one generation is worse off often compare today’s young adults with today’s older households. That mixes age, time and generation. A useful comparison asks how different birth cohorts were doing at the same age, then separates income, housing, debt and wealth.

Australian evidence points to a real housing-entry and income gap for people born in the 1990s. It does not support the stronger claim that every measure, or every person in that cohort, is worse off.

Compare cohorts at the same age

A household in its late twenties normally has less wealth than one in its sixties. That is a life-cycle difference. To identify a generational gap, compare late-twenties households born in different decades.

The Productivity Commission has described the 1990s-born as the first recent cohort not to have substantially higher incomes than the preceding cohort at comparable ages. This is a departure from the earlier pattern in which each cohort generally earned more than the one before it.

That conclusion concerns average income progression. It does not by itself measure housing security, debt service, superannuation or future inheritances.

Home ownership shows the clearest gap

HILDA follows households and individuals over time. Table 5.8 of its 2024 Statistical Report measures the proportion of people who legally own the home in which they live, not the proportion living in an owner-occupied household. For the 1990–93 birth cohort, ownership was 17.9% at ages 25–28 in 2018 and 32.7% at ages 29–32 in 2022.

The same-age comparison is explicit:

The later cohort’s rate was 7.7 percentage points lower. The table and accompanying explanation appear on printed pages 93–94 of the report. This compares the same age band in different calendar years; it does not isolate a causal generation effect from changes in prices, credit, policy or other period conditions. These are historical observations, not 2026 ownership rates.

Later entry matters because a home is both a place to live and an asset usually bought with debt. A renter can have a healthy investment portfolio, but a cohort that buys later has fewer years to pay down mortgage principal and participate in house-price gains or losses.

The gap can persist even when rates fall. Lower mortgage rates improve cash flow for borrowers, while cheaper credit can support prices and raise the deposit hurdle for entrants.

Real income recovery does not erase the starting point

The RBA expects real household incomes to improve as wages grow and inflation moderates. That helps current cash flow. It does not reverse years in which rents, deposits and debt burdens grew faster than some young households’ incomes.

This is why a national recovery and a cohort disadvantage can coexist. The average household can receive real-income relief while renters and recent buyers retain less buffer than established owners.

The existing five-measure Australian income dashboard tracks wages, inflation, disposable income, GDP per person and productivity. A cohort comparison adds who receives the recovery and what balance sheet they started with.

Debt is not automatically evidence of disadvantage

A large mortgage can reflect expensive entry, but it also finances an asset. Consumer debt without an appreciating asset has a different effect. The comparison should therefore measure debt service, asset value and liquid savings together.

Useful cohort measures include:

• after-tax real income per person;

• rent or mortgage payments as a share of income;

• home ownership and deposit size at the same age;

• mortgage and non-mortgage debt;

• liquid financial assets and emergency savings;

• superannuation balances; and

• net wealth excluding and including housing.

One metric can improve while another deteriorates. Higher compulsory super can lift retirement wealth while leaving a household unable to fund a deposit today.

Inheritance can narrow one gap and widen another

Wealth transfers complicate the generational story. Later cohorts may receive larger inheritances because older households own more housing and superannuation. That can lift average lifetime wealth.

The distribution is uneven. A young adult with family housing wealth can receive deposit assistance or an inheritance; another with similar income may receive neither. Transfers can therefore narrow the average gap between generations while widening the gap within the younger cohort.

The Productivity Commission’s mobility work is an important counterweight to a simple decline narrative. Some wealth measures show later generations better off at equivalent ages. Income, housing access and net wealth do not have to deliver the same verdict.

A practical cohort scorecard

The claim that 1990s-born Australians are worse off becomes stronger when four conditions appear together:

• real income at the same age fails to exceed the preceding cohort;

• housing costs consume more income and ownership remains lower;

• debt service and liquid buffers are weaker; and

• super and financial wealth do not compensate for the housing gap.

The view would weaken if ownership catches up without excessive debt, real incomes rise faster for younger workers, or non-housing wealth closes the difference. It would also weaken if later HILDA waves show the gap was mainly delayed entry rather than permanently lower ownership.

The conclusion is distributional, not personal

The evidence supports a narrower conclusion than “millennials are doomed”. Australians born in the 1990s face a weaker income progression and a pronounced housing-entry gap at comparable ages. Some are nevertheless wealthier than earlier cohorts because of education, super, financial assets or family transfers.

For investors and policymakers, the key question is not which generation deserves blame. It is whether income growth, housing supply, credit settings and tax-transfer rules allow the gap to close without requiring still more household leverage.

This is general information, not personal financial advice. The author may hold investments discussed. The publication may earn display-ad revenue, but no sponsor or affiliate influenced this article.

Sources

• Productivity Commission: the generational bargain

• HILDA Statistical Report 2024

• HILDA Statistical Report 2025

• RBA Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2026

• Productivity Commission: Fairly Equal? Economic mobility in Australia

• ABS: real net national disposable income per capita