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- Title
More or Less Equal? Australian Income Distribution in 1933 and 1980.
- Authors
McLean, Ian; Richardson, Sue
- Abstract
Utilizing information in the 1933 census we estimate several measures of individual and household income inequality for that year. Allowance is made for the effect of the Depression on the 1933 income distribution, revealing a clearly adverse impact. Comparisons with recent years indicate marked declines in aggregate income inequality. The pursuit of an egalitarian ideal has a long history in Australia. A widely shared objective during the colonial period was the creation of a society free of extreme disparities in wealth and income and of the rigid divisions of class that had prevailed in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. These aspirations found expression in the assertions of the miners' rights on the goldfields, the squatter-selector conflicts of the 1860s to 1880s, the rise of the trade union movement and Labor parties, and in the innovative regulatory and social welfare legislation that dates from the depressed years of the 1890s. Since Federation, policies to reduce perceived inequalities have been part of the social and economic program of all governments, State and Federal. What has been the result?
- Subjects
AUSTRALIA; INCOME inequality; ECONOMICS
- Publication
Economic Record, 1986, Vol 62, Issue 176, p67
- ISSN
0013-0249
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1475-4932.1986.tb00883.x