Abstract
AbstractDespite enduring political rhetoric that promotes Australia as ‘the lucky country’ and ‘the land of the fair go’, recent decades have seen a noticeable increase in levels of income inequality. This growing economic divide has driven housing prices up and left lower-income families unable to access the housing market in inner-city locations. In contrast to other countries, Australia’s socioeconomic segregation does not overlap with ethnic segregation. Australia’s highly regulated immigration program has resulted in a relatively well-educated and employable foreign-born population who largely reside in middle-income neighbourhoods. These particularities make Australia an interesting context to explore patterns of socioeconomic segregation over time. In this chapter, we will utilise both traditional measures of segregation (such as the dissimilarity index) as well more spatialised measures (such as location quotients and Local Morans I) to assess socioeconomic segregation at the local level. Drawing on four waves of census data (2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016), we explore how socioeconomic segregation has changed over time across nearly 500 neighbourhoods in Melbourne. We further examine the degree to which socioeconomic segregation aligns with ethnic segregation patterns and levels in this city. We find patterns of socioeconomic segregation remain relatively unchanging over time in Melbourne. Additionally, our findings highlight important differences in patterns and levels of socioeconomic and ethnic segregation in the Australian context.
Highlights
The findings demonstrate relatively stable, albeit slightly increasing trends in socioeconomic segregation over time in Melbourne and highlight differences in patterns of socioeconomic segregation and ethnic segregation
Recognising the need to tap into these multiple dimensions of segregation, we utilise a wide range of segregation measures in this study, including the Dissimilarity Index, Location Quotients (LQs) and Local Moran’s I (LM-I) to capture socioeconomic segregation patterns in Melbourne
While the overwhelming majority of Australians perceive the ‘fair go’ to be a core Australian value, the growing levels of income inequality, issues with housing affordability and increasing socioeconomic segregation outlined in this chapter present a threat to its longevity
Summary
In the 2019 federal election campaign, opposition leader Bill Shorten promised Australian voters a ‘fair go’ government if elected. Shorten went on to accuse current Prime Minister Scott Morrison of only ‘defending the top end of town’, positioning himself and the Australian Labour Party as the key to a fairer, more egalitarian society (Bagshaw 2019) Lower-income households and younger generations are increasingly forced to live on the outskirts of the city in neighbourhoods that offer fewer employment opportunities, in high skilled jobs (Randolph and Tice 2014). This trend reflects a growing spatial divide between the haves and the have nots—a process described by Randolph and Tice (2014: 385) as the ‘suburbanisation of disadvantage’. 12 The Land of the ‘Fair Go’? Mapping Income Inequality
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