Social Inequality in Australia: Effects and Proposed Changes

This proposal discusses social inequality in Australia, its effects, and proposed changes to improve the situation. It covers issues such as gender, employment, education, and their impact on living standards. The changes aim to benefit everyone in Australia and eradicate inequalities.

Running Head: SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN AUSTRALIA 1
Context of human services
Student’s Name
Course
University
Date

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Executive summary
This is the proposal describing various inequalities in Australia, their effects and the
change needed towards them. Some Inequalities discussed include social inequalities like:
gender, employment and others all this has negative affect toward living standards in Australia.
Education matter it has used as the main measure all types of social inequalities. The changes
should be made so as to encourage smooth life without inequalities and the benefit of the
changes. All the members of the Australia government and all member of community should
participate in these changes.
Table of Contents

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Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Social inequality in Australia....................................................................................................5
Proposed Changes to improve the situation............................................................................7
Feasibility and the benefits of the changes...............................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
According to Alam and Imran (2015)social issues are issues related to: education, employment,
distribution of wealth, gender balance and they all have to be addressed on an equal ground for
the satisfaction of the entire community. This report is going to address the social inequality as
the main challenge in Australia and is also going to outline how these issues shall be resolved for
a better tomorrow. Australia is amongst the countries in the world which are highly affected by
the inequalities matters. The most issues which will be discussed in this proposal is on how we
will handle the social inequality issue in Australia. According to Eckersley( 2015) social
inequality has a negative impact on the performance of the economy as a few individuals have an
access to available better opportunities such as better health care, better education, good roads,
good housing etc. The changes will aim to benefit everyone in Australia and eradicate
inequalities at a greater rate Australia.

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Social inequality in Australia.
Inequalities is the situation where members of a certain group of people are treated
differently considering their wealth, social status, opportunities, and economic power they have
in the community(Blossfeld et al., 2016). In Australia social inequalities have been the main
issue affecting the Australia as a whole. Unnecessary inequality amongst the members of the
societies is very harmful. Also social inequalities discourage people to participate in most social
functions in the society. The social inequality issue is brought about by inequality in access to
better education to all because most of the best schools in Australia are very expensive hence can
only be afforded by the rich class leaving most of the people in the middle and low level seeking
education overseas which results to limited employment opportunities for those who study
outside Australia.
Social inequality brought by access to better employment opportunities by a certain group
of people as compared to the others influences the earnings of each Australian citizen directly or
indirectly (Park, 2017).This has been evident where the Aboriginal and the Torres Straight
islanders have been discriminated by the society when it comes to the access of good
employment opportunities since they are the indigenous group. Education plays a very crucial
role in the society this is because most of the people in Australia today are experiencing income
inequalities due to lack of access to better education hence limited access to better employment
opportunities.

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From the statistics carried out, 20% of the population live in a domestic home with five
intervals as abundant earnings as the lowest of 20%. Further statistics shows 1% of the
population stay in domestic home with an income of 25 times weekly average compared to the
lowest person of 5% weekly average ($11680 vs $435/week). All this we can conclude that the
highest 1% gets income more for a fortnight while the lowest receive 5% throughout the year
(Marks, 2018). These statistics above differs because people they receive different education
according to the school and college attended. This means that the education system does not
offer uniform standard qualities to all candidates, therefore, ending to different earning in the
future. This results to a greater gap between the poor and rich.
Social inequality in education is evident where the female students are given more opportunities
in the selection of subjects for their career choices than male students. This is an issue that is
affecting Australia negatively because some of the industries end up been filled with female
employees than males hence increased maternity leaves which result to reduced productivity due
to low performance.
According to Redden (2017) the success of the future of the society it based on equality towards
gender which is a key social issue that affects the modern Australian society. According to the
research done, women in Australia are experiencing a smaller amount of wages and salaries as
compared to the males because the men are perceived to be the breadwinners hence they should
earn a little higher. The analyses reviewed that woman gets 9.4 % of their earnings less
compared to graduate men. Also, retirement fee is less than that of men and the range of earning
is $26,850 less. The social inequality issue in relation to gender imbalance in access to education
is evident in most of the schools in Australia where a large number of students are boys as
compared to the girls.

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Proposed Changes to improve the situation
Dealing with social inequalities require the participation of the entire Australians. The
government should also deal with an equal opportunity of access to education in Australia
through the formulation of a standard education system for future employment. Improving
education as a social factor will influence positively matters concerning health, gender,
employment and the Australian community shall be strong in all the social aspects.
The Government should offer regular job employment and not seasonal jobs to enhance
the living standards of the people. Other better way to deal with unemployment is to encourage
policies like decentralization and negotiation of rewards, eliminating the lowest wage, therefore
each individual feel recognized equally. Students educated in private institutions excel due to
quality education hence having a better access to employment opportunities as compared to those
of public schools hence the government should fund the public institutions to ensure that teachers
are motivated to offer quality education which in return shall lead to wide access of available
opportunities which shall eradicate the social inequality issues that is trending in the nation. The
government should channel resources towards the school programs and set favorable policies and
regulations through engaging all the Australians in enhancing social equality in various sectors in
their country.
Western and Tomaszewski (2016) state that the reduction of gender inequality in
education sector can be achieved by setting few policies which should be handled in both social
and cultural way. The following are ideas: by generalizing the girls’ and boys’ role in the
tradition, increase implementation of laws in contrast to gender-based occupation and introduce
mentorship on women so that they feel motivated like men in leadership positions among others.

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Feasibility and the benefits of the changes
Macro issues
There has been a lot of prevailing ideologies on social inequality issues in many nations and
many countries have worked on it and it is no more (Wilkins, 2015). This is a clear indication
that this is also possible in Australia. Policies can be formulated by the government to govern
such issues which shall result to economic development in the nation because all the Australians
shall have equal opportunities in various aspects ranging from an access to quality education
system to equal employment opportunities for both male and female.
Micro issues
Various organizations in Australia should formulate policies that shall protect the employees
from social inequality issues such as gender inequality at the work place where male employees
may be favored on various aspects as compared to females and vice-versa. The managers in the
organizations should enhance the implementation of the formulated policies because it has been
a culture in many organizations where policies are formulated but are not implemented hence the
existing problem persists in the organization. The heads of schools should ensure that they
formulate a clear budget which shall reduce the cost of education to enhance an access of quality
education by all the Australians which shall see them having an access to good jobs which shall
lead to an increased standards of living among them hence the general economic development of
the country.

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Conclusion
Social inequality should by all means be avoided in the society. Education inequality has
been used as the main social inequality factor which influences all other forms of inequalities
like employment, gender and earnings among the Australians. The government should formulate
strategies to ensure that schools charge affordable fees by all so as to ensure all the children have
an access to quality education which shall result to good life in future and leaders shall be
developed to conquer the social inequality issue in the country.

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References
Alam, K. and Imran, S., 2015. The digital divide and social inclusion among refugee migrants: A
case in regional Australia. Information Technology & People, 28(2), pp.344-365.
Blossfeld, H.P., Buchholz, S., Skopek, J. and Triventi, M. eds., 2016. Models of secondary
education and social inequality: An international comparison. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Eckersley, R., 2015. Beyond inequality: Acknowledging the complexity of social determinants
of health. Social Science & Medicine, 147, pp.121-125.
Park, S., 2017. Digital inequalities in rural Australia: A double jeopardy of remoteness and social
exclusion. Journal of Rural Studies, 54, pp.399-407.
Redden, G., 2017. John Howard’s Investor State: Neoliberalism and the Rise of Inequality in
Australia. Critical Sociology, p.0896920517745117.
Western, M. and Tomaszewski, W., 2016. Subjective wellbeing, objective wellbeing and
inequality in Australia. PloS one, 11(10), p.e0163345.
Wilkins, R., 2015. Measuring income inequality in Australia. Australian Economic
Review, 48(1), pp.93-102.