It now seems reasonably clear that after a long period of structural adjustment many households are putting a little more aside each month than they were for most of the 1990s and the early 2000s. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  Graph 9  This change can also be seen in a range of other indicators.
One example is the disaggregated data available through the annual HILDA survey of household finances. In the surveys that were undertaken between 2000 and 2005, there was a clear trend, with fewer and fewer households with mortgages reporting that they were ahead of schedule in their repayments (Graph 10).