Precarious employment in the urban context: the case of public housing

Housing provision in Austrolian cities has always been closely associated with labour market arrangements. From the late 19th century working people were devoting more of their earnings to obtaining a higher quality and more housing space than similar households in the countries they had emigrated from. They did this through both the rental market and homeownership (Frost 1991, ch6). In the post WWII period 1947-1966 the proportion of owner occupiers increased from 53.4 percent to 71.4 percent as cohorts of young households across the income range moved from private rental into suburban owner occupied housing. An important form of support for this transition was the state regulated mole basic wage and increasing household income (Castles & Mitchell 1994). From the 1960s following a period of house price inflation this movement into owner occupation increosingly depended on a second female wage (Yates 1981). Throughout this period the state also hod a significant role through programs that supported housing production and affordability (Dalton 2002; 8erry 1999). This was a period in which suburban home ownership was confirmed as an element of Australian citizenship