Fair Share by Stephen Bell & Michael Keating

Author:Stephen Bell & Michael Keating
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing

Source: Gregory, R, & Hunter, B (1995). ‘The Macro-Economy and the Growth of Income and Employment Inequality in Australian Cities’, Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper No. 325, Australian National University, Canberra, p. 12.

Equally important, this difference in employment opportunities by neighbourhood has also translated into differences in educational opportunities. The best private and even public schools are increasingly located in high-income suburbs—a process that has been accelerated by the fact that funding assistance to private schools, including very wealthy private schools, has increased much faster than assistance to public schools.3 The increasingly unequal geographic distribution of job opportunities is also resulting in less social mixing within individual suburbs, so there is less chance of children from different socio-economic status groups mixing in school. The overall impact of these changes is that school performance is increasingly likely to differ according to the socio-economic status of the parents in a given school’s catchment area, unless deliberate action is taken by governments to counter this potential passing on of inherited inequality.

This increasing spatial inequality means Australians are now sharing fewer common experiences, and so we face even less social inclusion and less equality of opportunity in the future. In particular, the possibility of increasing inherited inequality directly challenges one of the fundamental tenets of Australia’s social contract. Especially in pioneer countries, like the United States and Australia, the presumption has traditionally been that there would be equality of opportunity, so that the members of each generation could compete and advance on their merits. But now changes in housing affordability, coupled with a disproportionate loss of job opportunities in some of the outer suburbs and regional centres where manufacturing used to be concentrated, and the less equal provision of social infrastructure, like the quality of school education in those same suburbs and regional centres, collectively raise the possibility that there will be less equality of opportunity for the next generation. Young people whose parents come from a high socio-economic group have always been advantaged, but this degree of advantage appears to be becoming much bigger. Already, many middle-income young households will not be able to purchase their own home, unless they are prepared to move to an outer suburb that has fewer employment opportunities and poorer social infrastructure. Alternatively, they will have to be able to borrow from their parents, possibly against the equity in their parents’ home. With those in outer suburbs and some regional centres already disadvantaged, such residents are very likely to find it harder to gain future employment that allows them to advance in their preferred jobs or careers, unless government policy deliberately addresses these forms of social disadvantage, especially in regard to education and training. And if nothing is done, income inequality is likely to widen in future.

With decreases in equal access to housing wealth, as well as increasing inequality in wealth distribution more generally, Australia risks becoming a much more patrimonial society with much less equality of opportunity. Furthermore, Australia as a whole will feel less equal with much fewer shared experiences, leading to a less inclusive society.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.