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Taken as a whole, Boroondara is one of the most socio-economically advantaged local government areas in Victoria. Nevertheless, not all members of the Boroondara community enjoy the same access to opportunities and resources. For some residents, Boroondara’s broader affluence may even serve to heighten disadvantage.

While the 2021 Census revealed that 41.9% of Boroondara households were in the top income quartile for Victoria, it is also true that:

  • 16.3% of households were in the lowest group of equivalised Victorian household income quartiles (weekly income of $0 to $602), and more than 20% of Balwyn (22.0%), Balwyn North (21.0%) and Deepdene (20.2%) households were in that lowest income quartile.
  • In March 2025, 3,890 Boroondara residents received Rent Assistance (+10% since March 2024), 2,035 received a Disability Support Pension (+3% since March 2024) and 2,275 received JobSeeker (+25% since March 2024) (DSS 2025).
  • At the 2021 Census, 980 Boroondara residents were living in social housing and more than 320 were homeless.
  • In the March quarter of 2025, 3,030 Boroondara residents (2.8%) were unemployed (Id 2025), down 0.4% from the March 2024 quarter, and lower than both the Greater Melbourne, and Victoria unemployment rate of 4.5%.
  • At the 2021 Census, an estimated 1,507 Boroondara households (8.1% of mortgage holders) were in mortgage stress and an estimated 3,457 (19.2% of renting households) were in rental stress. These are households in the bottom 40% of income distribution which spend more than 30% of their income on mortgage repayments or rent (Public Health Information Development Unit 2023).
  • In 2023, 14.7% of Boroondara respondents sometimes, or definitely worried about running out of money to buy food in the last 12 months, and 4.9% had run out of food and couldn’t afford to buy more (2023 Victorian Population Health Survey, unpublished results).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics SEIFA Indexes combine Census data such as income, education, employment, occupation, housing and family structure to summarise the socio-economic characteristics of an area. The SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage, or IRSD (shown in Map 1) contains only disadvantage indicators (for example, unemployment, low income or education levels, single-parent families, low-skill occupations, poor English proficiency). According to the IRSD, no Boroondara neighbourhoods are among the 20% most disadvantaged in Victoria, but some are among the 30% and 40% most disadvantaged in Victoria (Map 1).

Information about these and other Boroondara neighbourhoods is available from Informed Decisions Boroondara social atlas.

A map of Boroondara with each Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) shaded according to its rank in Victoria on the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas index of relative disadvantage. There are 401 component SA1s in Boroondara. There are no SA1s in the 20% most disadvantaged in Victoria, 2 SA1s are among the 30% most disadvantaged (one in Kew and one in Balwyn) and 5 are among the 40% most disadvantaged (1 in Balwyn North, 1 in Balwyn and 3 in Hawthorn).

Map 1: Some Boroondara neighbourhoods (in orange on this map) are among the 40% most disadvantaged in Victoria based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2021 Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage. Data source: ABS 2023 Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), Australia

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