As one of the earliest members of Gen Y, born in 1984, I often feel like I was the last person to get on the helicopter out of town before the ladder came up. I paid HECS, but my fees weren’t too large. I was able to live in a four-bedroom share house in the inner west of Sydney for $105 a week for my room. And even as I have struggled with the rising cost of living, I had the benefit of having a career that started before the GFC, and a rising income that helped offset the pain.
To be frank, I was very lucky. Getting a tertiary education and moving to the city for study and work were, while not easy exactly, certainly doable.
This possibility, to build a life and career independent of one’s parents, has been one of the most important ways class mobility has been possibly in Australia.
Often, the conversation about intergenerational inequality focuses on specific issues like the cost of housing and access to education. But taken together, these and a number of other factors demonstrate that the foundations of class mobility, like access to education and employment, have been and continue to be undermined for Generation Y.
Education
Education is increasingly stratifying and becoming less affordable at the same time “credential inflation” demands more education for the same opportunities previous generations have had.
The rise of private education has helped fuel educational inequality. Between 1960 and 2013, the proportion of students in non-government schools in Australia increased from 24% to 35%. Most of that growth happened over the course of the educational careers of Gen X and Gen Y: in fact, the proportion of students in non-government schools decreased from 24% to 22% between 1960 and 1980, the Baby Boomers’ prime educational years. (Source: ) The flight from the public school system, and subsequent increases to government funding of private schools, has undermined the public education system in Australia, which is a key tool for providing working class kids with opportunities.
At the same time, tertiary education has become more expensive, both directly, through fee increases, and indirectly, through increased cost of living and education inflation. Universities around Australia are increasingly adopting the so-called “Melbourne Model”, which limits specialisation in undergraduate studies and making far more expensive postgraduate education more common. This, in turn, increases the amount of debt students are required to take on in order to be qualified for professional jobs. At the same time, it requires students to forgo a full time wage for longer, a prospect more difficult for students who don’t either have family support of the ability to live at home.
Meanwhile, the trades and vocational training institutions have also experienced both substantially above-inflation fee increases and decreasing government support. TAFE programs across the country have had huge funding cuts, and many types of vocational training are now provided through private colleges, which charge substantial fees on a HECS-type system. Students unwilling to take on the debt have fewer options for study, and VET colleges like TAFE disproportionately cater to students in the bottom two quintiles.
There has also been a reduction in the number of available apprenticeships: in 1989, when the population was around 17 million, there were 175, 500 apprentices in Australia. In 2013, with a population of around 23 million, there were 198,400 apprentices. That’s a 13.1% increase in the number of apprenticeships, when the population grew 35.3% in the same window.
Support for those studying has also been undermined by . Between 2003 and 2013, Youth Allowance for those living out of home went up 31.4%. Over the same period, rent in Sydney increased by 74%. And while pointing out the increase in costs is inevitably met with “why not live in outer suburbs?”, it’s worth pointing out that 76% increase is for the outer suburbs.
Employment
At the same time that education is becoming more expensive and less accessible, it is more important than ever for entering the job market. Unemployment rates are substantially lower for University graduates than their peers, and white collar jobs that a generation ago only required finishing year 12 now have degree qualifications as a minimum.
This disproportionately affects those from disadvantages areas, who are underrepresented in tertiary education: Only 16.1% of domestic higher education students have a permanent home address in the 25% lowest socioeconomic postcodes.
The rise of unpaid interships as an entry to professions has also contributed to this inequality. Working for lengthy periods without pay (and without the guarantee of a job at the end) is far more difficult for someone who has to support themselves while living out of home, compared to a student living at home with parental support. This increasing link between professional opportunities and family support further undermines class mobility.
The proposed PATH government internship scheme only serves to make this difference more pronounced. By extending unpaid and lowly-paid internships to traditionally entry level jobs, like working in a supermarket or a café, it could both reduce the availability of minimum-wage work in these institutions and further inflate the experiences required for even an entry-level job. It also has the potential to reduce the availability of part time work for people supporting themselves through their education.
The competitive graduate job market also disadvantages those who worked through university. When you are competing with fellow graduates for a limited number of jobs or postgraduate scholarships, grades matter. Maintaining a good average is significantly easier for students who don’t have to work long hours on top of study to pay the rent and buy food while they study.
Accommodation
Of course, this is the issue that is most visible when we talk about intergenerational inequality is the cost of accommodation, both in terms of renting and buying housing. It’s worth quickly reminding ourselves of the scale of these increases: between 1991 and 2013, the average cost of a property in greater Sydney increased by 280%, from $155,000 to $590,000. In the same time, average weekly earnings only increased by 149%. This disparity means that it is substantially harder for people to buy a house than it was in 1991. But it also has other implications.
The gentrification of the inner city has reduced the opportunities for people with lower incomes to live closer to employment centers. In Sydney, local government areas traditionally home to working class suburbs have experienced higher-than-average price growth, such as Botany Bay (404% between 1991 and 2013), Ashfield (297%), Marrickville (398%) and Leichhardt (403%). Compared to the average weekly earning increase of just 149% over the same time, these suburbs have become increasingly out of reach.
But the dramatic increase in housing prices also has a significant impact on wealth inequality. As housing prices have increased, the gap between the have and the have nots has widened. The share of wealth held by the top 40% of Australians increased from 80.3% in 2003-4 to 82.6% in 2013-14. Meanwhile, the share of wealth held by those in the lowest quintile dropped to 0.9%, and the lowest two quintiles from 7.0% to 6.0%. This amplifies the access to support and opportunities for the wealthy, and makes it even more difficult for the disadvantaged to bridge these boundaries.
While there is ample focus on the cost of living and housing making life my difficult to Gen Y compared to our parents, the combination of housing, the increased importance of post-school education for employment, the expense of study and the higher barriers of entry for entry-level middle class jobs is a far more dangerous combination. It undermines the ability of Gen Y from working class background to be able to access white collar education and employment. If Australia truly values egalitarianism as much as it claims to, we need to give that opportunity back. Like the Baby Boomers, Gen Y deserves to be able to work hard to make a better life for themselves.
Erin is a writer and journalist from Sydney, Australia, focusing on gender, sport and society. Her work has been featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, SBS Zela, ABC’s The Drum, The Guardian, Black Inc and more.
