Inequality in Australia Essay

When people say they “want justice”, what do they want? How can we achieve justice as a community?

Meritocracy, the system where each person's progression is due to their achievements, is seen constantly throughout society and it is suggested to be in Australian higher education. This essay will argue that rural students who attend or plan on attending university challenge this suggestion of meritocracy in Australian universities, as rural students are unequal compared to urban students. This essay will show that universities are not based on merit alone, as rural students are disadvantaged in areas such as distance, family & community values, course availability and university availability.

Inequality exists around us. One of the inequalities is the income received by a person or member of a family. This income includes wages, salaries, pensions, and interest derived from assets. Income inequality refers to the various income within a given population. This inequality is especially high in the United States.

Murray, Harry. "Deniable Degradation: The Finger-Imaging Of Welfare Recipients." Sociological Forum 15.1 (2000): 39. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.

Whilst these percentages had changed significantly it was also found that the types of people who were living under the poverty line were still the same. In this report it was found that 75 percent of those living below the poverty line were not in the workforce, and that the aged made up 41 per cent of all Australians that were living in poverty. (Williams, Lawrey 2000) Therefore it is clear that although the poverty line had risen significantly from 1975 to 1987, there has not been an improvement in the percentage of Australians living under the poverty line, but instead this percentage has increased.

Western women have traditionally been perceived as the inferior sex, or the domestic partner, subjected wholly to the private sphere, and stripped of legal rights and standing. Meanwhile, men are depicted as the breadwinner, the strong, masculine and dominant partner, who belongs primarily to the public sphere. These historic gender norms have been deeply imbedded within Australia’s social foundation, and although society has gradually shifted away from these roles, evidence suggests that this gender inequality still riddles the modern day workplace. Liberal feminist groups have embraced this issue, and have classified it as being a true barrier to achieving the ultimate gender equality goal. Consequently, these liberal feminists along

Social inequality is a problematic phenomenon that occurs all around the world and affects both the developed and developing nations. It is defined as “the unequal distribution of social, political and economic resources within a social collective” (van Krieken et al. 2013, p. 205). Inequality is closely connected with social stratification, a system of social hierarchy that positions individuals and groups into categories according to social variables such as class or ethnicity (van Krieken et al. 2013, p. 485). This stratification has a significant impact on the opportunity that an individual may have to move up the hierarchy of inequality (Gill 2017a).

Each year income increases in the United States. Economic inequality and political inequality may have a connection where our democracy could be affected but americans have the ability to solve this problem. Economic inequality refers to wealth or income between different groups or a society as a whole. There have been past social movements that have tried to improve this problem such as women's suffrage and more. We are still trying to resolve this issue of economic inequality.

As you can see, there are many economic and social costs and benefits of inequality in the distribution of income but in general, having high levels of income inequality is bad for an economy and individuals so Australia has continually attempted to have relatively low levels of income

Changes within the welfare system as a result of policy shifts and by new thinking, more generally in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have had many methods, but the one that seemed most important, was that welfare recipients were required to do much more to justify their income support payments than before. The foundation of this new idea is that income support programs should allow individuals to maximise their participation in work. Due to the general shift in welfare administration, the number of activity test requirements an individual in Australia must meet in order to receive unemployment benefits, has expanded significantly since the early 1990s. This complex, overly bureaucratic process means that disadvantaged individuals cannot access the income support payments they require.

The disparities accounted for in the distribution of wealth and income tends to reflect wealth that is accumulated during a person’s working life and utilised during retirement. Whilst this sources the foundation of inequality, the distribution of income in Australia is influenced by socio-economic factors such as gender, age, occupation and ethnicity. Gender is a common inconsistency in various economies, during 2013 average weekly earnings for males were $1516 while females earned $1250, this is still coherent for males and females in the same occupational categories, and is augmented for opposite genders in different occupational categories. In terms of ethnicity, it has been recorded that persons born overseas earn more than persons born in Australia, that non-English speaking backgrounds earn less than English speaking backgrounds and the period of residence in Australia is proportional to the income earned. However, the lowest income earners in the Australian community are Indigenous Australians and being heavily reliant on government welfare, earn a substantial loss in income compared to that

This means that the public are the people who are affected by the indirect and direct consequences of a society. Most Canadians make financial security a primary element of life. It is said that “poor people are least able to withstand any kind of financial crisis because they have so few assets and often have outstanding debts. People in the middle may be squeezed because so much of their wealth is tied up in housing. Only people with above-average wealth enjoy true financial security because they have sizable financial assets in addition to housing and other non-financial assets” (Kerstetter 2002). The segregation in the public causes inequality and degradation among the two classes in Canada and internationally. In an article written by Errol Black and Jim Silver, they stated that “tax changes benefit people with very high incomes” (Black and Silver 2010). They also noted that “the people who pay the highest price in highly unequal societies are the poor, who are much more likely to live short, unhealthy and unhappy lives” (Black and Silver 2010). This shows that the poorer people in society are put more at a disadvantage and that society is set up to take more money from the poor and less money from the rich. Due to the fact that they contribute a lot of their money into taxes and the economy, it makes it even harder for them to overcome their financial crisis. This results in them working at poor jobs in poor conditions

One of the social issues concerning power, status, and class in American society today is income inequality. The income gap between the social classes has increased drastically throughout the last few decades, creating a significant gap between the wealthy and the poor. This gap has become so large that the middle class has nearly diminished, creating a social class comprised of the rich and the poor. The significant gap between the two social classes is unhealthy for the economy because it provides too much power in the hands of those with high social status.

Currently there are many problems and flaws with the way the Canadian government’s policies deal with healthcare, income inequality and poverty. Time to time changes in policies have been made, perhaps to improve these issues, however, the gap between rich and poor keeps increasing and there is very little improvement in healthcare and the economy. In fact, healthcare keeps on becoming costly. Major issues like income inequality and poverty are not being taken care of by the government. According to Dr. Raphael (2002) poverty is caused by several reasons such as inequality in people’s income, weak social services and lack of other social supports (p.VI). He states, “Poverty directly harms the health of those with low incomes while income

A major social problem in America today is its inequality of the distribution of income. "Income inequality refers to the gap between the rich and the poor. The United States has the most unequal income distribution in the industrialized world, and it is growing at a faster rate than any other industrialized country" (Eitzen & Leedham, pg. 37). The main reason as to why income is distributed so unequally is because of the gap between social classes.