World News for Students of English

04-09-2026 07:00

In Australia, high property prices and rising cost-of-living pressures are forcing more families to live together under one roof. Many young adults are postponing or completely abandoning their plans to buy their first homes.

As a result, the number of multigenerational households grew by 22% between 2016 and 2021, and experts expect this trend to accelerate. To cope with these financial challenges, older generations are adapting their homes. Some grandparents are renovating their houses to accommodate adult grandchildren, while others are buying modular homes to place on their children’s land.

Many families find positive benefits in this arrangement, such as shared living costs and built-in help with childcare. In response to this demand, secondary dwellings such as granny flats are becoming increasingly popular. Industry leaders are now calling for simpler planning laws to make it easier to build these small homes across the country.

Difficult words: abandon (to give up on something completely or leave it behind), multigenerational (involving several generations of a family living or working together), dwelling (a house, apartment, or other place where people live).

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