Class-based Inequalities in Australia

The following essay will look at the statement “class-based inequalities exist in Australia” and will explain how the inequalities exist.

There is a significant amount of research that shows the connection between class and health. Germov states working-class people have higher rates of death and illness as a result of their living and working conditions. Studies of morbidity and mortality have consistently shown that the poor have the highest rates of illness and the shortest life expectancy. This is somewhat due to the social economic status of these classes. Upper class have more then adequate access to health services, nutrition and healthy lifestyle, where as middle and working class do not have the same accessibility to these services.

Classes arise from the social structure, and therefore class-based health inequality needs to be addressed primarily through structural changes to the economy, the workplace, and the community, guided by public policies based on social justice.

Class is made up of three classes; these are upper class which is nine percent of the population, middle class which is forty seven percent of the population and working class which is forty four percent of the population.

There a five main points which explain health inequalities, these are artefact, natural/social selection, cultural/behavioural, materialist/structural and psychosocial/social capital explanations.

One of the key indicators of class inequality is the distribution of wealth. The top fifty percent of the population own 98.4 percent of the Australia’s wealth, which leaves the other fifty percent owning only 1.6 percent of all available wealth in Australia.

According to Queensland University of Technology, if equality was increased the total number of deaths that would have been avoided in 1998-2000 among persons aged 25-64 if all geographic areas in Australia had the same mortality rate as the most advantaged twenty percent would have been 18999 deaths.

Inequalities do exist in Australia. The above essay explained some factors why and how Class-based inequalities exist in Australia.