Socio‐economic groups moving apart: An analysis of recent trends in residential segregation in Australia's main capital cities

Francisco Azpitarte,Felipe Hugo‐Rojas,Olga Alonso‐Villar

doi:10.1002/psp.2399

Francisco Azpitarte, Felipe Hugo‐Rojas + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2399

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Abstract

AbstractWe study changes in the spatial distribution and segregation of socio‐economic groups in Australia using a new data set with harmonised census data for 1991 and 2011. We find a general increase in residential segregation by education and occupation groups across the major capital cities in Australia. Importantly, these trends cannot be explained in general by changes in the demographic structure of groups and areas but rather by the rise in the over and underrepresentation of groups across areas. In particular, our analysis reveals clear diverging trends in the spatial configuration of high and low socio‐economic groups as measured by their occupation and education. Whereas high‐skilled groups became more concentrated in the inner parts of cities, the low‐educated and those working in low‐status occupations became increasingly overrepresented in outer areas. This pattern is observed in all five major capital cities, but it is especially marked in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Highlights

Social and economic transformations in many industrialised countries over the past 50 years have had very asymmetric effects on skill groups, widening inequalities between them
We study residential segregation from an evenness perspective―that is, the extent to which a group is unequally distributed across locations―as well as a representativeness perspective concerned with the extent to which the representation of groups in each location differs from the representation one would expect given the group's weight in the overall population
According to Dg, in 2011, 23.3% and 14%, respectively, of workers in bottom and top occupations living in Sydney would have to change place of residence to have no segregation, whereas in 1991, these percentages were 17.4 and 15.6. Those working in middle occupations experienced the highest increase in segregation of all groups in all major cities, their level of segregation was still far below that of the other two groups by 2011.13. These results suggest that the rise in overall segregation in Australia's main capital cities was, at least partially, driven by the rise in the residential segregation of low-skill groups defined in terms of education and occupation

Summary

Introduction

Social and economic transformations in many industrialised countries over the past 50 years have had very asymmetric effects on skill groups, widening inequalities between them. Similar to other Anglo-Saxon countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, since the 1980s, Australia's labour markets have been characterised by an increasing polarisation, with a decline in middle skill and routine jobs, and a sharp increase in the number of casual jobs―from 15% in 1983 to 28% in 2002 (Campbell, 2004)—all of which disproportionally affected the lowskilled members of the workforce (Coelli & Borland, 2016) This shift in the structure of occupations came alongside an increase in the return to skill of the most qualified further contributing to inequalities between skill groups (Keating, 2003). We hypothesise that these compound inequalities have had consequences for the residential sorting of skill groups within Australian cities

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