They may take away our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom to drive!

They may take away our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom to drive!

Petrol today costs around 40% more than it did 12 years ago, after adjusting for inflation, but Australians still drive like it’s going out of fashion.  Australians have defied the petrol bowser again and again since the 90s, bringing into question what impact some government policies may have in curving our enthusiasm for the wheel. Seems there is no pricing Australians out of their cars.

One of the ways in which governments hope to influence people’s activities and consumption is by affecting prices. All things being equal, increasing costs is meant to decrease consumption.  And decreasing consumption should decrease environmental impact.

Cars petrol links

 

Yet, Australians are unwilling to let go of their car keys, despite the cost blow out.  Petrol prices increased 51% from 1998 to 2008, and while they’ve dropped slightly from the peak, they are still 35% higher than in the late 90s. Beyond the whinging and media focus on the topic, Australians’ driving habits appear unfazed. Passenger vehicles travel between 7,200km and 7,700km per person every year since the late 90s, with only minor variations each year.

But not only are Australians not driving less, they’re also moving towards less fuel efficient SUVs over sedans.

SUVs cars sales

So, are Australians too wealthy to be easily manipulated by monetary pressures?

An AC Nielsen survey in 2006[1] suggested 60% of Australians were decreasing their car use to deal with the price increases. But it seems people overestimate their willingness or ability to update their behaviours according to their environment.  Increased petrol prices definitely led to increased snarling at the local servo. But people kept find themselves sucking on the bowser’s tit, much like the electorate with the major parties: they don’t like it, but are too lazy to search for other options.

Unless there’s a party willing to go beyond a 50% tax increase to test how elastic the petrol guzzlers are, what chance do governments have to guide behaviour through tariffs.

 


Sources

http://www.aaa.asn.au/aaa-agenda/affordability/latest-fuel-prices/

http://atrf.info/papers/2010/2010_gargett.pdf

http://stat.abs.gov.au/OECDStat_Metadata/ShowMetadata.ashx?Dataset=ERP_QUARTERLY&ShowOnWeb=true&Lang=en

ABS : 6401.0 Consumer Price Index, Australia, TABLES 1 and 2. CPI: All Groups, Index Numbers and Percentage Changes

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/aussies-changing-driving-habits-to-cope-with-fuel-prices/2006/03/07/1141493652510.html

Rental struggles

Rental struggles

Australian renters spend 23% more of their budget on rent than mortgagors on loan repayments.

Following from a recent post, this further shows that renting stings more than home-loans, and Australian Governments need to focus more on rental affordability than on those trying to enter the housing markets.  Yet the conversation hardly mentions them.

REnt by quintile

The average Australian renting household spends 22% of their weekly expenditure on rent, while those repaying a home-loan only spend 18% of their weekly bucket.  The analysis, based on the latest (but slightly outdated) ABS figures from 2009-10, shows the difference is more pronounced in the higher income brackets.

The difference is even greater among households whose main source of income is Government pensions and allowances. Aged Pensioners who rent spend 4 times more on rent than mortgagors do on repayments.  Renters relying on unemployment benefits spend 30% of their weekly expenditure on rent, while mortgagors spend half that amount (16%) on repayments.

REnt by pensioners

So, it’s pretty clear that households struggling with housing costs need help to pay their rent, not to continue to amass wealth while chasing the “Australian dream”.

For all the support, subsidies, and attention paid to first home-owners, Australia is in a great place to ensure no one goes without housing. And renters appear to be at the heart of it all.

 


Sources:

6530.0 Household Expenditure Survey, Australia: Detailed Expenditure Items, 2009-10

65300DO001_200910 Household Expenditure Survey, Australia: Summary of Results, 2009-10

Too many cookies in the education jar

Too many cookies in the education jar

Much is being said of the government’s support of private over public education of late. Last week was accentuated by the Private school, public cost report suggesting private funding will soon overtake public, with other opinion pieces echoing its sentiments.

According to the research based on MySchool data, Government support for private school is growing at twice the rate of public schools’ support.  This, however, is only true if you focus on the last 6 years.  The complete opposite trend was true for the 5 years prior. While MySchool data is only available since 2009, the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services goes further back and shows a different trend over an extended timeline¹.

Growth in backing 2 by 5 yearsThe report’s major strength is that it compares a finer slice of the community, focusing on schools with similar socio-economic backgrounds. This removes the effect of funding allocations based on need, which the government currently follows. Seeing as public schools disproportionately service poorer areas, using PC’s rough average (as I did) overestimates the difference in funding as the population serviced by private schools is generally cheaper to support. Unfortunately, the complete MySchool data is not easily available online, so my analysis is restricted to aggregate data and misses this finer level investigation.

However, while I suspect the difference is smaller than that suggested by the PC analysis above, the trend over the 11 years is likely to be the same.

Surprisingly, it’s not only Federal Governments whose support increased faster for private schools over the past 6 years.  State Governments increased private schools funding at 2.6 times the public schools’ rate between 2009 and 2014, with all but NSW and SA increasing support for private faster than for public over that period.  Northern Territory’s private school support grew at almost twice the rate of their public school support.

Growth in backing by sector

Growth in Federal Government’s support has been relatively even over the same period, with private schools funding growing 18% faster than public.

Growth in backing

(N.B.: All analysis is conducted on figures adjusted for inflation.)

The main reason for private schools outpacing public schools is that Federal Govs have increased school funding faster than State Govs.  Over the 6 years in question, State Government funding on average increased by a miserly 4%, while Federal Governments increased education support by 25%.  As Federal support private education more than they do public (as a base rule), their increase ends up largely in private coffers.  Even if Federal grants increased equally across both sectors of education, private schools would win.

This does not excuse the recent growing support for private school funding, but suggests that perhaps our current funding models are too complex and compartmentalised to understand how each lever impacts individuals and/or the entire system. We have too many jars, and too many types of cookies in them. Whether on purpose or misfortune, this often leads to undesired results, like the examples mentioned in the Private school, public cost report, where some private schools receive more funding than their neighbouring public educators.

As long as private schooling is legal, governments need to ensure they are adequately funded and this means continue funding for private education. However, the upper echelons of private education should not be taking resources away from those who need it most.

Education policies should be about more than funding, i.e. how the funding will be used, but perhaps there is room for one overarching policy, not about how much funding will be allocated, but how the cookie factory will be better and more equitably managed

 

 


[1] Following “Private school, public cost” methodology, public funding is multiplied by 0.85 to remove User Cost of Capital.

It’s not the size of your budget, but how you use it that counts.

It’s not the size of your budget, but how you use it that counts.

Education policy discussions focus almost exclusively on funding, and this election carries the stench of a pissing competition. However, based on OECD PISA findings there is no link between spending and outcomes, and more so, increased funding over the past 10 years has not shown improvements in student achievements¹.

Even if this weren’t the case, Australia is already among the top spenders in the world, with continuous funding growth going back decades.

School funding appears to only improve achievement up to the point where US $50,000 (ppp) is spent per student over the course of their schooling. Beyond this amount, spending does not seem to improve outcomes. Australia already spends double this amount, and is only surpassed by six countries. Of these six, only Switzerland performed better in PISA 2012.

(The following graphs are sourced from the OECD’s PISA:  
What Makes Schools Successful? Resources, Policies and Practices – Volume IV Publication)

PISA Spending

Much like Australia, most OECD countries increased expenditure in education in the period 2003 to 2012, yet the majority did not find improvements in student outcomes, with many (including Australia) going backwards.

PISA Spending increased

So perhaps it’s time we elevate the conversation from “my education budget is bigger than yours” to “this is how we’ll improve education outcomes, and here is all the research which makes us confident it’s the best way to invest the public purse”.

The current discourse gives the impression that education is under constant attack. However, school funding is ever increasing.  Public schools receive around 15% more per student now than they did 10 years ago (adjusted for inflation). Taking a historical view, public schools are now funded at twice the rate they were in the mid-90s and four times the rate of the mid-70s².

This is not to say that funding doesn’t need fixing, but I doubt it’s a case of needing more, rather better investment and distribution; for decisions to be made based on evidence, not political persuasion.

“What do we want?”

“Evidence based policies!!!”

“When do want them?”

“When they are good and ready, and the research is robust.”


[1] https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-volume-IV.pdf

[2] http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/A75909A2108CECAACA2569DE002539FB?Open & http://www.pc.gov.au/research/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2016/childcare-education-and-training/school-education & http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6401.0

Those who can’t afford, rent.

Those who can’t afford, rent.

With so many budding photographers around Australia, it’s surprising the housing affordability conversation is so out of focus. It seems the pressure is on people paying hundreds a week into someone else’s investment, not on those depositing hundreds of thousands into their own investment bricks. While it may not impact the average Joe, nor Jane next door, rental (un)affordability seems to have a greater impact than the housing bubble on everyone’s lips.

One way to compare the pressures faced by renters and buyers is by analysing their decisions, or those they are forced into. This analysis, like a previous article,  focuses on small families (couples and single parents) with one or two children.  This is mostly to simplify comparisons, looking at a more homogeneous group, rather than drawing conclusions from a wider, more disparate cross-section of the community.

As previously shown, the majority of small families live in homes with a spare bedroom or two. However, a smaller section can’t afford enough bedrooms to go around. For some this means siblings sharing bedrooms, and for a smaller group the parents cohabitate with the kids.

Housing affordability might be affecting buyers and renters, but the figures below show that the pointy end of the rental market pricks more.

Based on 2011 Census data, couples with one child who rent are 8 times more likely to have to share rooms with their child than those who own or are buying their home. For single parents the ratio is 4 to 1. Likewise, families with 2 kids (couples and single parents) who rent are 5 times more likely to make their kids share a room than families who own or are buying.

Insufficient rooms

These families make up a very small proportion of the whole community. But this still affects over 5,400 single-child families living in homes with 1 bedroom or less (studio).

While I personally believe sibling make for great room-mates while growing up, modern Australian culture prefers otherwise, and the decision for kids sharing rooms is shaped somewhat by financial pressures. When parents share a bedroom with their kids, it’s even clearer that financial pressures forced them into an undesired situation.

Whether or not this issue’s media attention is disproportionate overall is a separate question, but perhaps we should pay less attention to those attempting to join the bourgeoisie, and more to the smaller groups facing eviction notices.

 

 

 

 

Affordability, it’s a matter of expectations

Affordability, it’s a matter of expectations

There is no doubt that Australian property prices are increasing at a rapid rate. Affordability, however, may depend on expectations.

There is a difference between something being unaffordable and it rapidly increasing in price. The topic of housing affordability has been on high rotation in Australian politics for the past few years.  It’s the pinnacle of two topics du jour: Capital Gains Tax and Negative gearing. Much has been written about the impact these two policies have had on house-prices since the 1980s.  However, most articles focus on the speed of the price increase, not on whether houses are relatively ‘affordable’?  What is affordable? Would we think houses affordable if prices dropped by a third?

Much was made of Turnbull’s interview with the one-year-old who negatively geared property (or at least her parents did), and how out of touch the sentiments of the interview were. But it is generally acceptable, on the other hand, for a couple with a 4-month-old to own a home with spare rooms¹.

“We don’t have unreasonable expectations, but those three-bedroom apartments and townhouses are cost prohibitive ….” said Ms Rule-Layton, Coburg.

Census figures show that when it comes to young families with one or two children, spare bedroom(s) are by far the norm, not the exception.

Of the 207,000 couples with one child owning (or paying off) a home in 2011, 91% had at least one spare room. Almost half of these had 2 spare bedrooms or more.

The situation is surprisingly similar for single parents with one kid.  More than 4 out of 5 had at least one spare bedroom, and 27% at least 2.

When it comes to 2 children families, the question of spare bedrooms is slightly more complicated as the issue of sharing bedrooms arises.  Statistics usually show you how many people and rooms there are per home, but not whether kids share rooms making others spare, etc.  However, only 3 in 100 home-owning couples with 2 kids had insufficient rooms for their kids not to have one each.  This figure only rises to 5 in 100 for single parents with 2 kids.

Couples kids rooms

According to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, 3bdr apartments and houses in inner Melbourne are on average 54% and 32% more expensive than the 2bdr variety.  That roughly equates to an extra $310k for the 3rd bedroom of an apartment, and $285k in a house.

This ratio may not be representative of the whole country but it does suggest that the 3rd bedroom contributes substantially to the price of the dwelling (approximately 30% across the greater Melbourne).

Would homes be deemed affordable today, if the price dropped by this amount?

If families were willing to live without the luxury of a spare bedroom, this saving becomes a real possibility. This relates to the 9 out of 10 couples with one child, and 55 out of 100 couples with 2 children.  Also, to the 42 in 100 families with two kids who have individual rooms.

However, it seems Australians fear room sharing more than they do debt.

 

The extra bedroom phenomenon is not limited to Australia’s elite. The ratio of houses with at least one spare room is remarkably similar across all socio-economic backgrounds for couples and single-parent families with one child. The difference becomes noticeable on households with 2 or more spare bedrooms.

Couples rooms deciles

Single parentsrooms deciles

And while the spare bedroom, beyond individual kids’ rooms becomes more difficult for the less well-off families, only 9% of the poorest single-parent families don’t have enough rooms for their kids to sleep separately.

Single parentsrooms deciles 2 kids

There is no doubt that Australian property prices are increasing at a rapid rate. Affordability, however, may depend on expectations.

Australia’s housing standards are amongst the highest in the world. The OECD ranks Australia’s housing at 4t4h highest out of the 36 compared in the Better Life Index². Furthermore, within this champagne crowd Australia’s housing costs come a timid 11th cheapest (of the 36) in terms of housing costs vs disposable household income.

Not only are Australian housing standards particularly high, but they are also improving fast. The average floor-space of new homes increased by almost 40% since 1985³, to 208 metres2 in 2013. To put this in context, the average new home in Germany is 109m2 and in the UK it is 76m2.

Average space home

Based on the best international comparisons I could find4, Australia leads the way in size of new dwellings, easily doubling the size of many European countries’.

Apples w watermellons

So, when we hear international house price comparisons, it’s worth remembering we’re not always comparing apples with apples, but rather their apples with our watermelons.

Does Australia have a housing affordability crisis? It’s hard to say. It depends on your definition of affordable. However, there is a lot of room to move if we want to decrease the cost of housing without lowering our standards beyond what is considered acceptable across the rest of the world’s richest countries.

After all, do we even want our in-laws to have a spare room at our place to crash in?  Save yourself the $300k, and shout them a five-star hotel for the few nights a year they do visit the grandkids.

 

 

 

 

[1] http://www.domain.com.au/news/melbourne-apartment-boom-is-it-working-for-buyers-and-residents-20160429-gogjvs/

[2] http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/housing/

[3] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/8752.0Feature%20Article1Jun%202013

[4] http://www.demographia.com/db-intlhouse.htm

How Aus $ affects Aus votes

How Aus $ affects Aus votes

There is no correlation between an electorate’s socio-economic standing and its preferred political party, at least not in the 2013 elections.

The simplistic view of politics suggests one party proposes policies which help poor people and the other party angles to improve the lives of those more fortunate. Yet, in Australia, the socio-economic make-up of an electorate is a very poor predictor of which party will be voted in, at least not nation-wide. It seems Labor electorates are not the working class suburbs usually portrayed, and Liberal electorates aren’t the prime real estate so often generalised.

This is clearly seen when focusing on the top 10 Liberal/National coalition seats.

Top 10 Liberal Seats

As the graph above shows, the ‘rich’ are grossly under-represented in the top 3 ‘liberal/national’ seats, and in three more of the safest Liberal seats.  On the other hand, they are hugely overrepresented in the other 4 of the top 10 seats (averaging 85% of each overrepresented electorate).  As an example, Mallee, on the NSW/Victorian border, has the highest Liberal vote, yet over 50% of the population falls in the bottom 30%, and only 6% are considered in the top 30% of Australia.

The graph below examines the link across all the electorates, by mapping the Labor 2-party preferred vote to the percentage of the electorate which falls in the bottom 30% of the socio-economic spectrum. (It’s a mess!)

Link Labour SEIFA

Similarly, there appears to be no relationship between party allegiance and private schooling.  For all the apparent willingness of the Liberal party to support private schools, areas with a high percentage of kids attending private school are just as likely to vote blue as they are red.

Liberal Private schools

While it seems there is no link between ‘class’ and politics Australia wide, a relationship does exist within capital cities.  Filtering out electorates which have less than two-thirds of its population within a capital city (using ABS’s remoteness divisions), a correlation of 0.51 appears between the Labor vote and areas with high proportions of low socio-economic households.  This means that the larger the percentage of ‘lower class’ households in an electorate, the more likely Labor is to win the seat.  Similarly, the more rich households there are in a city electorate, the more likely the Liberal Party is to win.

(Graph slightly less messy.)

Link in Cities

No such link appears to occur outside of the major cities, neither in regional cities nor in rural areas.

So, are parties not catering to one side over the other, or are constituents unable to discern how each party’s policies will affect them, or do people not vote based on what may benefit them? Or is politics a whole lot more complicated than that?

 

 

______________________________

 

Sources

Voting from Australian Electorate Commission http://results.aec.gov.au/17496/Website/HouseDownloadsMenu-17496-csv.htm

Socio-economic and School attendance from ABS, Census Statistics.

http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/Census?opendocument&ref=topBar

Smoking the poor

Smoking the poor

Australia’s 2016-17 budget announcement included “four annual 12.5 per cent increases in tobacco excise and excise equivalent customs duties”, claiming it will raise “$4.7bn over the next four years”.¹

This is unlikely to face much opposition. After all, taxing smoking aims to discourage the leading cause of preventable deaths in Australia².

But it’s interesting to see who will be most impacted by this, as smoking is a poor person’s game.

Based on 2009-10 household expenditure data³, increasing the cost of smoking will have a much larger impact on the poorest sectors of the community than anyone else.  More specifically, it will impact households receiving unemployment, disability, and carers payments – those already under the most amount of financial strain.

Smoking poor

Back in 2010, the poorest 20% of households were already spending four times as much of their weekly expenditure as the richest 20%.  Households whose main source of income was unemployment benefits spent three and half times the national average on tobacco, in relation to their total income.  Those whose main income was disability and carer payments spent three times the national average.

This is likely to be much more accentuated today as the 25% annual increase in tobacco excise since 2010 has almost doubled the price of cigarettes since that data was produced[4].

So how will this picture look in 4 years’ time, after 8 years of tobacco increases, when a packet of winnie blues cost $50?

Smoking is addictive. I suspect it’s easier to sell a house than quit smoking. Yet, when governments change legislation, making previous decisions less financially desirable, there’s usually talk of ‘grandfathering’ policies. That is to say that if we ever change capital gains policies we’ll ensure those who got in on the action prior to the changes don’t lose out.  Should similar considerations be made with smokers? Or is this more like the drug dealer who gives away the first few hits until you’re hooked, and then jacks up the prices, marginalising the destitute to a life of crime, imprisonment and social isolation?

I suspect it’s not all bad. Many will quit, thus improving their lives, and those of their loved ones. But for those unable to let go of nicotine’s vice, I suspect health issues will be only part of their worries.

 

 


[1] http://www.budget.gov.au/2016-17/content/glossies/tax_super/html/tax_super-05.htm#health

[2] http://www.quit.org.au/resource-centre/facts-evidence/the-big-kill

[3] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/6530.0Main+Features12009-10?OpenDocument

[4] http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/13-3-the-price-of-tobacco-products-in-australia

A tale of two culinary cities

A tale of two culinary cities

Food and its enjoyment might be a very personal and subjective thing, but Australians are obsessed with quantifying it.

Today was the Australian Financial Review’s turn to put out a list of Australia’s top 100 restaurants. This one has the distinction of being voted on by ‘top’ chefs and restaurateurs.

And if these experts are to be believed, it seems hard to get a decent meal outside of Melbourne and Sydney.  77 of the top 100 restaurants are based in Australia’s biggest cities, with a further six in country NSW and Victoria. This leaves only 17 restaurants across the rest of Australia.

The spread is even worst when focusing on the highest echelons, with Tasmania the only ‘outsider’ to place in the top 40!

Top 100 restauratns pyramid

Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city fared the worst. Only two of its restaurants landed in the top 100, placing 64th and 78th.  Hobart, a quarter of Brisbane’s size, punched way above its weight, also with 2 placings (10th and 86th).

I have eaten at 14 of the listed restaurants and in my opinion they’re very much hit and miss: MoVida and St Crispin stand out, but Bar Lourinhã and Cutler & Co are terribly overrated.

Top 100 restauratns zomato

The eating and judging masses also appear ambivalent about the choices.   The top 100 restaurants score between 3.2 and 4.9 (out of 5) on Zomato, with an average score of 3.9.  This is not a terrible score, but hardly seems top restaurant material.

So, while I don’t find such lists helpful in choosing a spot for a Friday night bite, they do show how geographically lopsided opinions are.

Brisbane’s culinary scene may have been transformed since I left there almost 10 years ago.  Not only in the usual spots like New Farm, Paddington and West End, but also more suburban areas like Graceville are sprouting delicious eateries (e.g. Boucher French Bistro).

Still, the reputational status quo remains, and conservative lists like this probably don’t help.

 

 

Total List Table

Top 100 restauratns table

De-constructing the ‘g’ gap

De-constructing the ‘g’ gap

Last week was International Women’s Day so everyone should be up to date with the latest estimate of the gender pay gap (17%), and very well versed on at least three theories behind it.

Now, then, might be the perfect time to ask why the social progress and workforce changes which occurred over the last 30 years have had no impact on the gap.

The increasing awareness, numerous policies, university attendance explosion, increasing maternity leave and participation rates, industrial and occupational distributions, and a myriad other variables have increased or decreased to varying degrees. Mostly towards gender parity. Yet the pay gap for full-time women has not deviated more than +/- 2 percentage points since Lionel Ritchie first sang “Hello…. is it me you’re looking for?!”[1].

Gender Pay gap 83 15

The gap itself is a complex issue with many moving parts. This is a look at a few of those parts, and a general wondering: how is it not improving?

 

An aging workforce

One of the biggest changes in the workforce has been workers’ age. Average full-time wages increase rapidly with age, until they begin plateauing around 30, finally peaking in the late 30s to mid 40s (depending on occupation and role).  On average, workers under 25 earn 40% less than those 25 years and over[2].

Historically, one of the reasons behind the wage gap has been that working women are dis-proportionally younger than men, and therefore lower paid (i.e. junior staff on junior wages).  But the age demographic across the sexes has become a lot more equal over the last few decades.

While the overall percentage of workers under 25 has halved since 1983, women’s compositional distribution has changed much more than men’s (as shown by the graph below)[3].

Aging workforce by Sex

This suggests junior wages, or wages from young staff who are yet to reach role maturity, should have a much smaller impact on the overall average wage than it used to. Thus, diminishing one reason why there may be a pay-gap.

On the other end of the maturity spectrum, the proportion of women over 40 has almost doubled since 1983.  This suggests a greater proportion of women are returning to full-time employment after giving birth, continuing to build on their careers, with advanced wages.

Aging workforce by catergories

The changes in women’s labour force have been so substantial that the average age gap between the sexes is less than a quarter of what it used to be: down from 4.5 years in 1983 to 1 year gap in 2015.

This said, women have not achieved age parity in the workforce, but it’s certainly a lot closer than it used to be. Yet, the pay-gap has not changed since ‘Return of the Jedi‘ hit the cinema screens.

 

Women learning it for themselves

One potential reason behind the maturing female workforce is the increasing number of women attending university.  University attendance has increased across the board, but women’s increase has doubled men’s.  While women had not achieved tertiary education parity by the early 80s, they well and truly have by 2015.  In 2013, 58% of all Australians studying at university are women. This is just as true for postgrads as it is for undergrads. In fact, women have been the majority at uni since 1987[4].

This increase in university attendance has flowed to the labour force.  Full-time working women are now 45% more likely to have graduated from university than their male counterparts.

Uni Attainment in LF by sex

However, not all graduates are created equal. Some fields of study pay more than others, and the figures above don’t provide that level of detail. But overall graduates earn substantially more than workers with no university qualifications, and women are increasingly dominating this sphere.

This further suggests a move towards pay parity.  Yet, the pay-gap has not changed since Bob Hawke first became Prime Minister of Australia.

 

From doing to managing – occupational changes

Higher paid occupations (e.g. managers and professionals) now make up much larger proportions of the workforce than they did in the mid80s. Whether it’s due to social progress, the growing number of university educated women, or any other reason, the proportion of women in these roles has increased faster than men’s over the period in question.  The proportions of full-time women in the two highest paid occupations, professional and managerial roles, have increased 12 and 6 percentage points respectively. Men, on the other hand, increased 7 and 2 percentage points.

To balance this out, the proportions of women filling admin, labouring and sales roles (the three lowest paid occupations) have decreased by 11, 4 and 3 percentage points, to men’s 2, 4 and 1.

The graph below compares the proportion of women and men by occupation in 2015 to 1986. Higher paid occupations have generally increased, and low paid decreased… and women have faired better at both ends of the spectrum.

 

Occupation can still account for some of the current disparity. Despite the move towards higher paid roles, women are still over represented in some of the lower paid occupations; e.g. 25% of women fill admin roles, as opposed to 7% of men. But the changes over the past 30 years should have had an impact on the pay disparity.

Yet, the pay gap has not changed since the average price for a Melbourne house was $52,000[5].

Changing occupations by sex2

Mining the AGEING boom

Unlike the other variables examined, women have not clearly moved to the higher paid industries over the past 30 years. In fact, women have slightly decreased proportional representation for the three highest paid industries when compared to men (i.e. mining, financial and professional services). Mining is of particular interest as it is the highest income by almost $40k, and the boom meant its growth outstripped every other industry’s growth. These two aspects combine to help stretch the pay-gap further apart.

Changes in Industry distribution, by sex, 1984 to 2015

Changing industry by sex 3

The industry experiencing the largest increase in women participation has been Health Care and Social Assistance, potentially on the back of Australia’s ageing population’s demand. While its income is only marginally below the average for all industries, the increase in Health and Social assistants means women have not migrated towards the higher paid industries in large numbers.

Having said that, as previously described, women have gained much ground in GP representation.  The proportion of women GPs has increased from 22% in 1984 to 43% in 2014*.  This means that whilst women continue to be over represented in lower paid industries, they are filling higher paid roles within these industries.

 

Ask for more

Data on workforce by “method of setting pay” (i.e. opportunity to negotiate pay, which some suggest promotes disparity) has been hard to come by. This aspect may be extended upon in future.

 

Yet, not.

Most of these changes suggest the gender pay gap should have decreased over the past 30 years. At the very least it shows the variability of many contributing aspects. To not have achieved pay parity is understandable, as there are still many obstacles to overcome, and underlying contexts/assumptions/social norms to change. And many tricky issues to figure out on how to get there.

  • Should more women work in higher paid industries, or should we (financially) value women-dominated industries more?
  • Are health and education paid less because they are women heavy industries, or are they women-dominated because they are lower paid?
  • Should we increase paternity leave to support women to stay, or support them to return after birth-giving?
  • Should women be encouraged to negotiate more or should industrial frameworks diminish the impact negotiation has on individual’s pay?

But to not have made any improvement, despite all the changes that have occurred seems odd. Changes in age  alone should have had massive impacts.

Yet, not. No change, improvement or otherwise.

This post has no answers or suggestions… just a baffled look to greater minds to tells us why…

 

 

 


[1] Based on Full-time ordinary wages, by sex from Average Wages, ABS: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6302.0Nov%202015?OpenDocument

[2] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6306.0May%202014?OpenDocument

[3] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6291.0.55.003Nov%202015?OpenDocument

[4] http://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/time_series_data_1949_-_2000.pdf and http://highereducationstatistics.education.gov.au/

[5] http://www.econ.mq.edu.au/Econ_docs/research_papers2/2004_research_papers/Abelson_9_04.pdf

 

Australia’s war on what

Australia’s war on what

The incarceration rate in the U.S. is ridiculous, but it wasn’t always like this.

The 1970s kicked-off the ‘tough on crime’ and ‘war on drugs’ period, which has had such an impact that the U.S. now has the highest prisoner rate in the world (discounting Seychelles), and currently stands at over 4 times the OECD average¹. In fact, the U.S.’s willingness to imprison its people is so out of step with the rest of the world that it now hosts almost a quarter of the entire world’s prisoners².

Yet, the incarceration rate of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is more than twice³ the rate of the U.S. … and growing!

The first graph has been doing the rounds for the last couple of years, and shows how the U.S.’s willingness to imprison its population has changed over the last few decades.

The second graph compares the American rate to that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.

How bad is the crime situation in Australia that has lead to this?

 

 


 

[1] http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/factbook-2010-en/11/04/01/index.html?contentType=%2Fns%2FStatisticalPublication%2C%2Fns%2FChapter&itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fchapter%2Ffactbook-2010-95-en&mimeType=text%2Fhtml&containerItemId=%2Fcontent%2Fchapter%2Ffactbook-2010-95-en&accessItemIds=&_csp_=4f5272543a5f9d2bef941b4101f970ae

[2]  Roy Walmsley (November 21, 2013). World Prison Population List (tenth edition)International Centre for Prison Studies.

[3] Comparisons across international jurisdictions are more complicated.  Generally the ABS figures for rate of imprisonment is based on all people in jail per 100,000 adults. The US figures in the historical data presented here, however, only include ‘prisoners sentenced for 1 year or more’. The graph provided shows comparable data, based on the same variables. The relevant Australian figures for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are derived using data in Table 10 of ABS’s Prison publication linked below.

U.S. Data for 1925 to1977 from http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/section6.pdf

U.S. Data 1978 to 2014 from http://www.bjs.gov/ –  Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT) – Prisoners

Australia Data: http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/8D5807D8074A7A5BCA256A6800811054?opendocument

Prisoner publication 2005 to 2015 – please request derived figures. Planning to have datasets available online in future.

 

4:  Picture used with CC authority, thanks to: www.flickr.com/photos/marineperez/4698707308

Picture changed to highlight that 1 in 3 people in Australia’s jails are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

Out of the dog house

Out of the dog house

I’m not sure whether it’s the cute-dog youtubing or an improvement in general humanity, but something is making Australians euthanize a lot less dogs than they used to.

The number of dogs euthanized per year by the RSPCA¹ has dropped by over three quarters since the mid-90s.  Most of that drop happened in the last five years.
RSPCA dogs and cats 1995-2015_ 2

While 6,765 were put down in 2014-15, this is a huge drop from the 33 thousand the RSPCA averaged in the late 90s.  Even up to 2010 there were over 20 thousand dogs euthanized per year.

In rough terms, 70 less dogs are being put down per day, than 20 years ago.

Similarly, cat euthanizations have decreased by 60% over the same period, with almost all of this occurring since 2007.

Some of this drop can be attributed to more pets (particularly cats) being reclaimed or rehomed prior to having to be put down. Back in 1996, the RSPCA killed three out of every 4 cats it came into contact with. That rate has now dropped to 1 in 3.

RSPCA cat outcomes_2

 

If people keep adopting pets (and other great initiatives), hopefully this trend will continue!



Sources and Links
1 RSPCA Stats:  http://www.rspca.org.au/facts/annual-statistics
Adopt-a-pet:  https://www.adoptapet.com.au Feature Pic: Dog beach afternoons