Ideas@TheCentre
Fair go fear-mongering flies in the face of facts
Instead of getting his government’s fiscal house in order, Treasurer Wayne Swan is fanning fears that the fair go is under threat. He has even called the 14 September general election a ‘referendum on the fair go.’
As my new report A Fair Go: Fact or Fiction? shows, Swan’s fair go fear-mongering is unfounded: Australians from even the poorest and least educated families are entering the ranks of the nation’s wealthiest and best educated.
Approximately 12% of sons born into the poorest 20% of families become part of the wealthiest 20% of the population as adults, and almost a third of the children of fathers who stayed at school until Year 10 or below gain university qualifications.
Just as humble beginnings are no barrier to success in Australia, a privileged background is not a substitute for ambition and ability.
Not only do 17% of sons born into the wealthiest 20% of families fall into the poorest 20% of the population as adults, but slightly more than a fifth of the children of university-educated fathers only complete Year 12 or less.
This massive movement both up and down the socioeconomic hierarchy makes our meritocratic society one of the most socially mobile in the industrialised world.
Approximately 41% of the children of parents who did not complete high school pursue tertiary education, putting Australia almost 10 percentage points ahead of its closest OECD competitor, and more than 20 percentage points ahead of the OECD average.
The earnings advantage enjoyed by the children of wealthy fathers is also only slightly higher in Australia than that of the social democratic Nordic countries, and approximately half the rate of the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
Clearly, Swan’s doom and gloom is out of touch with the evidence: Australia remains a fair go success story.
The experience of millions of Australians – from battlers who have come good to affluent first-generation migrants who arrived with little more than drive and raw talent – shows that the fair go remains the defining feature of contemporary Australia.
Benjamin Herscovitch is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies and author of A Fair Go: Fact or Fiction?
