An Australian’s outlook – 37 years ago vs today

Exactly 37 years today, my family and I arrived in Sydney. We landed in the morning, took our luggage, and met my uncle at the airport. Incidentally, I was the same age as Cyrus is now (year 1) and this would mark a new path in my life.

I looked out the window of my uncle’s car as he drove from the airport to the suburbs. The contrast to Hong Kong’s high-rise buildings and crowded roads was stark. Sydney in 1989 was a bustling city but it was different. The city was larger in size, people had more space, and traffic congestion was mild by comparison.

Suburban living in Sydney was a novelty for me, even though I lived an atypical life in Hong Kong. We lived in a villa in Hong Kong with our own courtyard, provided by my father’s employer. But the amount of space people had in Sydney was eye-opening. Children could play and climb trees in their yards and ride their bikes on the road. There was a lot for me to become familiarised with.

Today, Cyrus is growing up like I did. We live in a suburban home without a mortgage and I take him to ride our bikes in the neighbourhood. He goes to a local school and catches up with some school friends for parties and playtime in a nearby park.

On the surface, Cyrus is living a life like mine when I was a child. Yet there’s a world of difference in what awaits him outside our home.

Many Australians feel this more starkly than us.

Australia in the 1990s – Hopeful of the future

At the time I arrived in Australia, it was recovering from a small recession. The interest rates were in the teens, but most Australian households appeared to have taken it at a stride. Housing and cost of living were affordable. In Sydney, the median annual income for an individual, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, was $26,000 while the median home was $194,000. This meant a house was worth around 7-8 years of income. Dual-income households back then were more a choice made to pursue a better life.

Most families I knew at school had more than one sibling. I could still remember the famous commercial for Ford Laser showing how it was spacious enough to seat the average Australian family with 2.3 children (even increased to 2.4) at one stage.

I grew up seeing my parents live within their means yet be able to enjoy domestic and overseas holidays every second year. They were frugal by choice. We never worried about paying the bills and having food on the table. On investing, they took modest risks to afford additional luxuries, rather than because out of necessity to stay afloat.

As a child, I imagined my future to be something like theirs – a stable job, a house that was paid off or with only a modest mortgage, and married with 2 or maybe 3 children. And for the country, I shared a hopeful future like many Australians in my generation.

Australia today – More options, less choice

Today, 37 years later, Cyrus is growing up in a substantially changed Australia. Beyond his life that’s like mine at home, society has become something less inviting as it once was.

I’ll start with the positives. Income has increased substantially, with individuals earning a median annual income of around $97,000. Dual-income households have become the norm as female participation in the labour force grew substantially.

Today’s households own much more material possessions. Spending power increased through multiple credit cards and the option to draw down their home equity, derived from a much larger mortgage.

Technology has also advanced incredibly. I grew up with an IBM PC computer whose speed increased from 20MHz in 1991 to 1GHz by 2000. We connected to the internet in 1998. Fast forward to today, smartphones with touchscreens the size of our palm can process faster than the fastest computers back then. We’re now at the point of watching artificial intelligence replace people for many tasks.

Yet the improved living standards and greater range of choices have come with a substantial price and burden on individuals, households and society.

House prices accelerated particularly sharply from around 2010 onwards, with Sydney’s median home breaking above $1 million for the first time in 2017. By 2025, it had risen to around $1.76 million — nearly nine times its 1990 level. Affordability has deteriorated dramatically, with a median Sydney home now costing more than 18 times median full-time annual earnings.

What drove this?

Australia increasingly embraced the idea that population growth, constrained housing supply and limited land availability would push property prices higher. Rising property values became not merely a cost of living, but an increasingly attractive path to wealth creation. The low-interest-rate environment that followed the global financial crisis made it easier for buyers to borrow, increasing their purchasing power. At the same time, rising immigration and population growth added to housing demand, while the growing perception of property as an investment reinforced the cycle.

Meanwhile, the cost of living also increased significantly. Essential expenses such as food, healthcare, education, utilities and fuel consumed an increasing share of household budgets, leaving less disposable income available for saving and investment.

It’s therefore no wonder that a significant proportion of Australian families now have both spouses in the workforce. The female participation rate rose from around 52% in 1990 to around 60% today. This was an important social and economic development, giving women greater independence and career opportunities. But it also changed the economics of the household: two incomes increasingly became the norm for families seeking to maintain a comfortable standard of living and enter the property market.

Some will argue this is empowerment. However, it is hollow when choice gives way to necessity to pay the bills and feed the family. Our younger generation has decided to defer marriage (or not at all), have fewer children (or none at all), and live for the moment. Many don’t think the game of life is winnable by following the rules, so they have made a different game for themselves.

A slow-motion disintegration

How did we get from a country embracing the new millennium with hope to one where many just want to tune out?

The deterioration didn’t happen overnight. It came through a succession of shocks and policy responses — from September 11 and the global financial crisis to the pandemic and the wars that followed. Each changed perceptions of security, government, markets and personal freedom. At the same time, debt accumulated across households, businesses and governments, increasingly becoming the mechanism through which consumption and asset prices were sustained.

These have affected decision-making, particularly with dating, marriage, and raising a family.

As mentioned above, as more women joined the workforce usually out of necessity, marriage and fertility rates fell. Men and women competed in the workplace and for social positions. A shift in societal values created a wider gulf, making relationships and family-building the casualties.

Back in the 1990s, the average family had 2.4 children. The fertility rate at the time was 1.9 children per woman, below the replacement ratio. Today it’s fallen to 1.48, with migrant women from Asia, Middle East and Africa likely holding up this falling trend. Along with an ageing population, expect fewer Australian taxpayers in the future to cope with more elderly people needing aged care.

Preparing for the future –
Make your choice now

As I look at Australia today and compare it to when I was his age, I can’t help but think that there’s an uphill battle for him and his generation to fight. The obstacles are daunting and some will give into the challenge and stoke the decline.

For this reason, my wife and I feel the heaviness of our responsibility to ensure he’s well-equipped to rise above them all.

I can look at how my parents prepared my brother and I through their lifestyle and how they managed their finances. I can follow their example of building a solid foundation at home, whether it is financially, in our relationship with each other, and how we perceive the world.

But I can’t simply repeat that because so much has changed in these years it will cause us to fall behind.

So how do we know we’re doing the right thing? Good question. We start with understanding what we’re facing and identify the problems. This included what the government, central banks, and financial institutions have done to slow down growth, saddle us with growing amounts of debt, and then implemented solutions that claimed to increase our wealth and help those in need, but would leave us paying the bill. Then we can tailor our solutions and have a plan to respond to the circumstances.

I’ve identified the key problems in today’s article, and how we got here. Over the past 13 years or so, I studied these and gradually realised that knowing the difference between money and currency was the starting point to building a more solid foundation.

One of the most startling revelations was that the median national male full-time employee’s earnings grew in terms of gold in 1990 (53 ounces) and peaked in the early 2000s (80 ounces) before it started falling. Today, the same employee is earning just 15 ounces, half of what he was earning in 2023!

I also branched out and studied the different types of precious metals assets that could help me not only stay ahead of inflation, but to build real wealth. I invested in precious metals ETFs and gold and silver mining companies, developing my own valuation method and studying the dynamics of different types of companies.

Having experienced three gold price cycles and turning my modest savings into something that allowed us to buy our own home outright late last year, I’ve prepared a blueprint that could help people do something similar.

I call it The Go Your Own Way Blueprint. As the title suggests, you’re going to take your household wealth under your control, rather than rely on the government or someone else to give you peace of mind. You and I can’t stop the government and central banks from inflating away our wealth nor can we increase the birth rate by our own means. But at least we can ride above the negative consequences should their policies continue to fail the people.

If you’re interested in learning about the challenges that Australia faces and how you can defend yourself against them while building a brighter future for you or those you love, please click here.

With a hope and prayer, let’s do our bit to preserve the Australia that we could look back with pride and thankfulness.

Have a good weekend ahead!