# Housing Affordability and the Teacher Shortage (HATS) Dashboard

> An interactive research dashboard visualising the intersection of housing unaffordability and teacher workforce shortage across Australia at the SA3 (Statistical Area Level 3) level, from 2011 to 2025.

## About

The HATS dashboard is a research tool developed by Professor Scott Eacott (UNSW Sydney) and built by Small Multiples (Jack Zhao, Andrea Lau). It maps two compounding pressures on Australia's school education system: the national housing affordability crisis and the growing shortage of teachers.

The dashboard enables exploration of how these two issues intersect at a regional level — identifying where teachers face the greatest combined burden of unaffordable housing and workforce undersupply. Analysis is provided at the SA3 level, which represents regions of 30,000–130,000 people with similar geographic and socio-economic characteristics, as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

## What the dashboard shows

- **Affordability to rent or buy**: The ratio of median property costs (rent or purchase price) to teacher salary (graduate or top-of-scale) for each SA3 region, by year. Thresholds follow Demographia housing affordability ratings (buy) and the Rental Affordability Index (rent).
- **Workforce shortage**: The demand-to-supply ratio of school teachers for each SA3 region, by year. Regions are classified into five shortage bands (Much lower, Lower, Normal, Higher, Much higher) based on interquartile range analysis.
- **Intersection**: Regions that are simultaneously unaffordable for teachers and have higher teacher shortage represent the most systemically stressed areas.

Filters allow exploration by: cost type (rent/buy), property type (unit/house), salary level (graduate/top-of-scale), workforce demand metric, workforce supply metric, and year (2011–2025).

## Geography

All analysis is at the SA3 level across all eight Australian states and territories: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory, and Australian Capital Territory.

## Temporal coverage

2011 to 2025. Census-year snapshots: 2011, 2016, 2021. Annual housing and salary data interpolated across the full range.

## Data sources

- **School education workforce supply**: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing 2011, 2016, 2021.
- **School workforce demand**: Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) data access program.
- **Teacher salary scales**: State and territory industrial awards at graduate and top-of-the-scale levels for government schools.
- **Housing data**: Australian Property Monitors (APM) / Domain Insight. Copyright © 2024 Australian Property Monitors Pty Ltd trading as Domain Insight.

## Methodology

Affordability to rent is measured as median weekly rent divided by median weekly teacher salary. Affordability to buy is measured as median property price divided by annual teacher salary. Thresholds follow established affordability indices:
- Rental affordability: Rental Affordability Index (RAI) thresholds (Affordable <20%, Acceptable 20–25%, Moderately unaffordable 25–30%, Unaffordable 30–38%, Severely unaffordable 38–60%, Extremely unaffordable >60%)
- Purchase affordability: Demographia ratings (Affordable <3×, Moderately unaffordable 3–4×, Seriously unaffordable 4–5×, Severely unaffordable >5× annual income)

Workforce shortage is calculated as the demand:supply ratio. Regions are classified relative to the national distribution using interquartile range analysis.

## Research team

- Principal Investigator: Professor Scott Eacott, UNSW Sydney
- Dashboard design and build: Small Multiples (Jack Zhao, Andrea Lau)

## How to cite

Eacott, S. (2024). *Housing Affordability and the Teacher Shortage (HATS) Dashboard*. UNSW Sydney. Retrieved from https://housingaffordability.com.au

## Contact

UNSW Sydney School of Education
https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-scott-eacott