Social Mobility

Australia has been widely considered as a “lucky country” due to its egalitarian view whereby equality is pertinent among different individuals of different social class, gender and race. Based on the egalitarian view, social mobility should be obtainable to all Australians. However, is it really true that all Australians are equal and that social mobility is obtainable for all?
Social mobility refers to the ability for people to change social classes. According to Carl et al. (2012), “If social class was a ladder, social mobility occurs when we climb either up or down.” There exist 3 main different classes in Australia: the working class, middle class and the upper class. Although there exist a couple of ways to determine which social class

Most of the time, these groups of people are considered in the lower area of the social class, often experiencing social exclusion. Unskilled workers, young or old suffers from unemployment as a result of displacement by deindustrialization. Similar to unskilled workers, people with disabilities also suffer from high levels of unemployment, poverty, and social isolation as compared to the abled. Adding on to the disadvantages of the disabled, many public areas as well as polling places lack the necessary facilities to facilitate travelling for the disabled. The unobtainability of jobs puts the groups of disadvantage people in further disadvantaged situations. Since occupational attainment aids in helping one climb up the social ladder, it appears that people of disadvantage would be unable to obtain social mobility as they lack the very fundamentals of even being able to support themselves, thus refuting the widely held belief that social mobility is obatinable for all

Although there has been an increase in income for females throughout the years, the average male continues receiving higher income as compared to females (Western et al., 2007). Also, income capability of males continues to be the main determination of an Australian family income (Austen & Redmond, 2013).
Although female employment rates are increasing in recent years, most of the increments were see in females taking up more part-time jobs rather than full-time jobs as most females have other commitments in the family (Gellecum, Baxter & Western, 2008). It would be beneficial if females employed on the part-time basis receive similar opportunities such as work training and promotional advantages as their full-time counterparts (Gellecum, Baxter & Western, 2008). However, this is often not observed. This resulted in females with family responsibilities not being able to achieve high occupational