Women are more likely to enter the property market, and do so at a younger age, than their male counterparts, according to newly released ABS data. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) latest Gender Indicators Report, women are now getting onto the property ladder earlier and more often than their male counterparts.

The annual report utilised data from across ABS publications and other data reports in order to compare outcomes for women and men in various social and economic domains.

It found that the gender gap between men and women is closing in some areas.

For example, it found that – in the period 2017-18 – 58.6 per cent of Australian women lived in a home that they had bought or were buying with a mortgage, compared with 55.5 per cent of males. Further, women were getting their start on the property ladder earlier than their male counterparts, with 24.3 per cent of women aged 15 to 34 having bought a home with a mortgage, against 18.3 per cent of men of the same age.

However, home ownership rates for both women and men have dropped slightly over the last decade, according to the data, with falls of 3.6 and 3.3 percentage points, respectively, since 2007-08. Over the past decade, women's median superannuation balance at, or approaching, preservation age (the age at which you can access super) has increased at a faster rate than men, but a significant gap remains. According to the 2017-18 data, the median superannuation balance for women aged 55-64 was $119,000 compared with $183,000 for men of the same age.