Book Description

Living Decently describes material well-being in Australia at the end of the 1980s, and, in doing so, reaches conclusions that are surprisingly positive.Material affluence was at an all-time high. Although Australia was not the world leader in equality, it still ranked around the middle of the dozen most equal countries in the world. Australia is a world leader when it comes to social mobility: advantage and disadvantage are not always passed onfrom one generation to the next. Where disadvantage does exist, it is often compensated for by advantages in other aspects of life. Thus, the aged in Australia generally have low incomes, but they enjoy extremely high rates of home ownership. In the late 1980s, Australians were indeed `livingdecently'. Unpersuaded by the `gloom and doom' accounts of life in Australia that abound, and particularly sceptical of accounts of ever-increasing poverty, even in times of economic prosperity, the authors examined the measures used in these accounts and concluded that they make it difficult toreach any conclusion other than a gloomy one. Accordingly, they have designed better measures of a more accurate and rather more encouraging picture of how Australians were living at the end of the 1980s.It is argued, however, that this rosy picture may not last. It was built on low levels of unemployent, high rates of home ownership, and `good enough' social security, health and education systems. All these features are under threat in the 1990s. The book goes on to make recommendations on howAustralians might live as decently in the future as they have in the past.Living Decently is a challenging and timely offering to the literature on material well-being, poverty, welfare and social economics in Australia today. Its findings are cause for cautious optimism and provide a direction for future action.