Economic inequality Between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians
Introduction
Thought the last century, the subject of inequality has come to the fore. It seems that social, economic, racial, ethnic disparity became ubiquitous under the circumstances of economic and technical progress. While some countries take a course of rapid development, others remain behind. It happens not only on the political level but also within the country on the social scale. The emergence of perceptible economic inequality can now be observed in developed countries, and Australia is not an exclusion.
Historically, economic inequality strengthened disparities of income and living standards of the individual layers of the population, increased the gap between high- and low-paid members of society, and led to a deepening of population differentiation in the level of social security. The essence of social inequality is unequal access to various categories of the population to socially important goods, scarce resources, liquidity values. The essence of economic inequality is that the minority always has the greater part of the national wealth. In other words, the highest income gets the smallest part of the society, and the middle and the smallest - the majority of the population.
Sources of Inequality
Indigenous peoples’ penetrating marginalization is closely connected to many interlinking factors, such as ethnicity, language barriers, gender-based discrimination, and cultural traditions. Despite the fact that basic services become more and more accessible, the gap between indigenous and mainstream populations remain critical. In 2008, the Australian government accepted the fact of gap existence between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. There are a number of main spheres where we can observe the social disparity. This gap has penetrated in all scopes of life and includes factors such as life expectancy, infant mortality, health, juvenile delinquency, the level of education and employment, wages, and economic stability. For instance, the infant mortality rates taken from 2008 to 2012 shown that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children was as twice higher than for non-Indigenous children: 6.2 infant deaths per 1000 live births Aboriginal, compared with 3.7 per 1,000 live births of non-Indigenous (Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision, 2014). The same negative tendency for Aboriginal Australians can be observed in life expectancy: 84.3 years to 73.7 years respectively. Life expectancy is an extensive indicator of wellbeing and health. There is a firm connection between poor health and low life expectancy for Indigenous Australians. Chronic diseases, maternal death rate, the rate of disabled people are higher for them (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2014).
No wonder the disparity exists on the level of education and employment. The percentage of Indigenous Australians graduated from college is lower than it is for non-indigenous. This directly results in a higher level of unemployment for Indigenous Australians, whereas non-indigenousAustralians can earn higher wages. Within the past five years, Australians earnings reached the increase of 20% income which is five times more than the lower wages. “A person with accumulated wealth in the top 20% has seventy times as much as a person in the bottom 20%” (Taylor, 2015). According to Australian Council of Social Service, the rich population of Australia is getting richer, however, inequality is not as dramatic as in the UK or the USA.
The geographical isolation and lack of access to education and technological progress caused the main reason why Aboriginal people remained ignorant. Modern tendencies of the non-indigenous world kept them falling behind for decades. This became the main source of the gap between population. For many people, this inequality remained veiled. Moreover, indigenous people themselves are quite hard to understand their opportunities to live better off. Indeed, it is might be difficult to create a happy family if one experiences domestic violence. One might be affected psychologically seeing their peers committing suicide. There is no bright future if one’s surroundings are all glaring disadvantages and flaws that undermine all aspirations for better life. Consequently, contemporary disadvantage among Indigenous Australians should be viewed in the context of colonization (The Gap: Indigenous Disadvantage in Australia, 2016).
The “Closing the Gap Strategies”
There are two former economic development strategies from the Australian Government and the Cape York Institute that answer the question on what can we do to reduce this inequality. These strategies take different approaches.
The Cape York Welfare Reform Trial (CYWRT) is the strategy coined by Noel Pearson, Director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. His aim is to restructure Indigenous People’s social norms. According to Pearson, “personal and community responsibility has collapsed” due to long dependence on governmental financial support, so-called “welfare poison” that led to destructive behavior among youth, alcohol abuse, family violence and school absenteeism (“Noel Pearson’s policies”, 2011). The reforms take a course to establish Indigenous communities on the new level of self-dependancy, engage them in production and move Indigenous families out from social housing to their own properties.
Such reforms proved to be beneficial in some districts, and ever since health care, child protection and school attendance have improved. On the other hand, some reports find that those effects have not been lasting. In some trial communities, school attendance rate actually fell down. Some communities were resistant to the trial.
The economic development strategy from the Australian Government greatly differs from CYWRT. COAG expressed their intention to target Indigenous Australians in life expectancy, child mortality, education and employment by funding various spheres of life. This is a long-term strategy built on respect and provided by the 2008 National Apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (“Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage”). COAG put to the front the necessity to boost opportunities for Aboriginal people in Australia by gaining support not only from government but also from private sectors, individuals, and communities. COAG aimed to close the gap in health outcomes by funding around $1.6 billion for health care and improved treatment for new mothers and their infants; provide financial support for early learning, integrate early childhood and parenting services.
Conclusion
Marginalization of indigenous people is connected to long-lasting isolation, ethnicity, gender-based discrimination, cultural traditions. The gap between indigenous and mainstream populations remain critical. Inequality of population penetrates into all spheres of life, leading to a drastic gap not only in standards of living condition but also in life expectancy, infant mortality, health, the level of education, employment and career. There are two main economic development strategies employed: Australian Government that aimed at financial funding and the Cape York Institute strategy that contrary to governmental reform comply with the idea of independency and financial autonomy of indigenous community. While the last proved to have examples of both positive and negative effect, I find it not efficient enough and prefer stick with Australian Government and their targets laid out in National Indigenous Reform Agreement.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2015). Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2014). Maternal Deaths In Australia 2006-2010, Canberra
Australians together (2016). The Gap: Indigenous Disadvantage in Australia. Retrieved from australianstogether.org.au
Richardson D., Denniss R. (2014). INCOME & WEALTH INEQUALITY IN AUSTRALIA
Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision (2014). Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2014. Productivity Commission, Canberra
Taylor, L. (2015). Australian inequality rising as top 20% increase wealth and income – report. The Guardian, 21 Jun 2015.
Noel Pearson’s policies embraced by white Australia, but how effective are they? Theconversation. August 8, 2011.
