Young Women's Health:
demographic and health status information about women 15-24

The information in this handbook will inform agencies,  service providers and individuals within the Hume region about the health status of young women, creating a starting point for change, helping you with writing submissions and collating statistics.

The aim of this handbook is to bring together the key indicators of health status and health outcomes for women aged 15-24 in the Goulburn Valley and north east Victoria (the Hume region).

It has ‘myth busted’ some popular assumptions that exist within society regarding young women within the 15-24 year age group.

The handbook contains:

Available from our office
PDF copy...

Key Points

14.5% of Hume region women 15-24 are attending tertiary education – 6% full time and 8.5% part time.

21% are in full time employment.

30% are in part time employment.

6% are unemployed and looking for full time or part time work.

The Year 12 completion rate for women in the Hume region aged 20-24 is 66%. The equivalent rate for all of Victoria is 77 %. This means that one third of young women in our region have not completed Year 12, compared to one quarter for the state of Victoria.

Young women earn less than young men. More women than men in the age group 15-24 earn less than $400 per week. More men than women 15-24 are in the higher income bracket, over $400 per week.

Aboriginal women have a life expectancy of 63 years of age – 20 years younger than that of all Australian women.

One in three women are sexually assaulted by the age of 18.

Hume region has the highest rate of homelessness in Victoria, with 61 homeless people per 10,000 population, compared to a state average of 44 per 10,000. Young people make up a third of the total homeless population. Aboriginal people living in Victoria have five times the rate of homelessness of the non-Aboriginal population.

Young women living alone with children comprise 4%. Young men living alone with children comprise only 0.2%. This means that twenty times more women than men aged 15-24 live alone with children.

There appears to be an assumption amongst the general population that an increase of babies born within the 15-24 year age group has occurred due to the introduction of the baby bonus on 1st July 2001. However, there has in fact been a decrease in number of babies born to young women in 2006 compared to 1996.

More young women than men do unpaid domestic work. A total of 44% of young women do more than five hours unpaid domestic work per week, compared to 26% of young men. A total of 60% Aboriginal young women do more than five hours unpaid domestic work per week, compared with 40% of Aboriginal young men.

Young women are twice as likely as young men to care for their own or other people’s children. This is the same for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young women. The caring that women do leads to lower pay when they do return to work and lower superannuation payouts. In 2006, payouts were expected to be $130,000 for women and $455,000 for men, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia