Welfare reform disempowers youth
Reports such as the McClure welfare reform tend to portray young people as welfare dependent. Jessica Brennand says this ignores the roadblocks that parts of Australia’s young people are facing and further disempowers them.
Australian newspapers and magazines offer limited and negative information about young people, and the language they use is biased. Young people are typically stereotyped and labelled as delinquents and their contributions to society often ignored.
Research does not suggest that youth delinquency is increasing (AIC, 2002), however the media frequently misrepresents young people. Furthermore, while the media represents young people as the perpetrators of crime, young people are actually more likely to be the victims of crime.
As a result of this negative media representation, reports such as the McClure welfare reform are getting away with portraying young people as welfare dependent. It suggests they should be either learning or earning to prevent a life of welfare dependency, but ignores the roadblocks that some segments of the youth population are facing.
Many of the regulatory protections for workers such as fixed wage rates, annual leave provisions and laws against unfair dismissal have been replaced by enterprise bargaining and work place agreements. Wage earners are now personally negotiating critical aspects of their working conditions, however young people are often not very well informed about this process, and this leaves them open to exploitation (Nilan, Julian & Germov, 2007, pp. 125).
A survey on youth employment found:
- One in four respondents were unable to correctly identify whether they were casual or ongoing employees, and half of those who thought they were ongoing employees received no paid leave.
- More than half could not identify which award or agreement they were covered by.
- Over 50% reported having not received written information from their employer about pay, hours of work or safety, and over 25% reported not receiving pay slips.
- Those who reported not receiving payslips were more likely to work unpaid overtime.
- 23% reported being bullied by their boss, supervisor, colleagues or customers (with females being more likely to be bullied than males). (NSW Office of Industrial Relations, 2005)
The survey concludes that young people face a combination of lack of experience and understanding of their fundamental employment rights with a high degree of exposure to exploitation. This highlights the fact that they are an extremely vulnerable segment of the work force (Nilan, Julian & Germov, 2007, pp. 126).
Some of the potential implications for youth in the work force include: low rates of remuneration and unpaid trial periods, unsafe working environments, irregular work hours, lack of job security and harassment (NSW Office of Industrial Relations, 2005).
Furthermore, the McClure welfare reform report suggests that young people under the age of 22 should not qualify for payments in their own right, but that a new ‘child and youth payment’ should be paid to the parents or guardians of dependents. However, this pillar of the welfare reform fails to recognise the portion of young people who experience homelessness or family violence, which can cause ‘low skill levels’, and exuberate youth unemployment (Howden, 2005). By restricting access to income support for young people, the potential is to disempower youth and fuel stereotypes about them being lazy, irresponsible and incapable of making good decisions (Emslie, 2015), rather than ‘create incentives to work’ as the McClure report sets out to do.
Such a system assumes that the parents/guardians of unemployed youth are going to be more responsible with the financial support. It is conceivable that for the youth who already suffer in conditions where family alcoholism, gambling addiction, or mental health issues are present in their home could be further disempowered by not having direct access to resources they could use to improve their chances at employment, such as training, printing services, professional attire, etc.
Given the hardships that youth already face in gaining employment, and the potential for these reforms to further disempower them, it is hard to make a case for the reforms. There is little point to incentivising employment if at the same time you make it more difficult to obtain.
References
- Australian Institute of Criminology (2002). Australian Crime: Facts and Figures. Canberra.
- Emslie, M. (2015). Sidelined and scorned: young people are set up to be soft targets.
- Howden, S. (2005, Feb 27). Rise in jobless youths – crisis facing young. Sunday Telegraph
- Nilan, P., Julian, R. & Germov, J. (2007).Australian Youth: Social and cultural issues. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W: Pearson Education Australia.
Jessica Brennand lives in Brisbane and is currently in her final year at the Queensland University of Technology, undertaking a Bachelor of Social Work. Additionally, she has work placement and relief experience in the youth services sector. She is a highly motived, energetic person with a passion for youth advocacy.
consolate Kabaliza
March 28, 2015 at 2:22 pm
Youth Homelessness in Australia
As a person born and raised in a third world country I was always told how amazing and beautiful Australia was. Australians were friendly, helpful, and wealthy and had the ability to afford a relaxing lifestyle consisting of day trips to the beach, visiting pubs with friends, traveling and going to festivals (Lee and Cox, 2007). However, after being in Australia for number of years and being involved in various research projects, I agree Australians are friendly, helpful and wealthy but not all Australians are living in the dream. The statistics are overwhelming: Forty-two per cent of Australian’s are still living without any basic needs such as: sanitation food, clothing and housing. Approximately 44,000 of those young Australians under the age of 25 are impacted by homelessness and the numbers still increasing (MacKenzie and Chamberlain, 2008). Society might not be aware of these figures but there are a number of stigmas towards homelessness. It is not widely known that homelessness can affect anyone at any age. Young people can often be more vulnerable in the area of homelessness, which is compounded by other key factors such as race, gender, age and social status. According to Government of Western Australia Department for Child Protection, (2010-2013) “Homelessness is when you do not have a permanent, safe or secure place to live.” Young people become homeless due to a number of serious unfortunate events (MacKenzie and Chamberlain, 2008). There are various levels of homelessness as coined by tertiary, secondary and primary homelessness. Tertiary homelessness is the state where a person maybe kicked out of home and they are now staying at a boarding house on a medium to long-term basis. For others secondary homelessness is moving place to place, which might be boarding houses, friend homes and emergency accommodation for a short time. Then primary homeless contains people living on the street, cars and railway carriages for shelter (MacKenzie and Chamberlain, 2008). If Australia is a lucky country why the increasing rate of homelessness caused by: – Domestic and family violence – Physical and sexual abuse – Financial crisis – Intergenerational poverty – Mental health illness and psychological distress – People exiting prisons – Unemployment – Young people exiting from state care – Increase of home prices (Government of Western Australia Department for Child Protection, 2010-2013). The Australian government has planned to offer homeless people long-term accommodation by 2020 and the social and economic participation in the community should start as early as possible (Commonwealth of Australia, 2008). Homelessness has a major impact on young people, which might include: poor education, limiting health access, and basic needs (Australia’s Homeless Youth, 2008). Although in 2012 under the National Rental Affordability Scheme, the Australian Government capitalising $623 million to increase the supply of affordable rental dwellings by up to 50,000 but yet in 2015 more homeless people are still on the street (Commonwealth of Australia, 2008). It is very important to acknowledge the intergenerational poverty and significant risk of being born in a disadvantage families which might include: indigenous people, single parents, and teens who have been in state care (MacKenzie and Chamberlain, 2008) According to the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institution (2014) “Twenty-four per cent of Indigenous respondents experienced primary homelessness prior to the age of 12, compared with 13 per cent for non-Indigenous.” As I have observed, Australia has a number of support systems but youth homelessness still exists in Australia. Therefore, the Australian society, government and organisations need to pay attention this issue. Everyone has the right to a secure safe space to live in and the Australians need to look beyond a persons appearance. To create voices for these young people we need to understand questions such as: how and why they became homeless, this can help change the social stigmas and provide deeper understanding (Farrugia, 2008). Everyone living in the lucky country deserves the safe and relaxed lifestyle that Australia presents.
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Jacintajra
March 28, 2015 at 11:48 pm
Transforming disengagement to engagement?
Hey Jessica, I agree with you, the Mc Clure report does not address the barriers that young people are faced when it comes to gaining full time employment or furthering education. You have made some really valid points about the way young people are portrayed to be welfare dependant in the media, this ideology is defiantly present in this welfare reform. The focus of this welfare reform on welfare to work doesn’t address the barriers some young people face in achieving education and employment rather focuses on transforming disengagement to engagement and youth contributing to the problem rather than youth contributing to the solution (Callingham, 2013). The aims of this policy is for young people to play their part in society by contributing to the labour market or taking steps to achieve this by further education or training, in some cases for young people its not this simple. Adjacent to this the government has made budget cuts to the funding of important programs such as Youth connections that gained proven successes in providing opportunities for young people (ACOSS, 2014). Under the Coalition Government our universities are also at risk of being de regulated causing sky rocketed fees that would not be achievable for even middle class background young people to strive for. This new policy alternative also doesn’t address the barriers present to young people in terms of mental health issues or living in a rural or remote community. Further education and employment opportunities for remote and rural young people are slim often requiring young people to travel. Relocation Assistance does not cut it as an alternative as that would require young people to move away from their family and supports to move to a city where they wouldn’t have their important support and be forced to live independently. The current Liberal policy paradigm reflects that of the UK’S Welfare policy. The focus of the UK’S policy is to move forward from welfare to work to achieve labour market activation (Jones, 2012). Although this is the desired outcome of the UK long term youth unemployment are at historically high levels, skill deficiencies hold back employment opportunities for young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds due to low educational achievements yet continued inequality (Andre, Garcia, Guipponi & Pareliussen, 2013). Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Today there is a large gap in educational achievement between students from poor backgrounds and those from rich backgrounds, Australians education system is failing a large number of young people especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds causing young people to disengage from learning which makes it harder to find stable and meaningful work later in life (Lammas, 2013). The rise in cost of living contributes directly to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds not achieving a standard education status, simply some families cannot afford the adequate materials to send their children to school. There is a high percentage of children attending school that fall below the official government poverty line and recent government reforms only amplify this which impacts directly on the lives of our young people ( Woods, 2014). So if the focus is on increasing productivity why not invest more into the welfare state to provide families with the adequate means to afford the costs of schooling and so young people in rural and remote regions can afford to travel to further their educations and employment opportunities.
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Elaine WIlletts
April 1, 2015 at 2:40 am
What about the youth that fall through the gaps
Jessica Brennand (2015) stated that the “McClure welfare reform report suggests young people under the age of 22 should not qualify for payments in their own right, but that a new ‘child and youth payment’ should be paid to the parents or guardians of dependents”. I agree with Jessica that this statement does not take all circumstances that young people can experience into consideration. For example there is a large number of youth that are or were in foster care, and many of them do not reconnect with their parents and are in fact seen as independent adults at the age of 18, thus having no guardian. Many children who have been in foster care are our most vulnerable having already experience many hardships such as physical and emotional abuse as well as separation from family. They are one group of youths that slip though the gaps of many welfare reforms and often end up facing insurmountable odds in securing welfare payments. This means that these youths are limited in their options. There is also an increase in the level of ex-foster care youth experiencing homelessness and other hardships that leaves them feeling unwanted by an Australian society that are influenced to see all youth as delinquents(Herlocker, 2006, p4). Australian social views of youth are very stereotypical, in part this is due to the Australian media (Sooryamoorthy, 2011.p.605). The negative information that portrays most Australian youth as alcohol and drug uses, as well as bulgers that live at home with parents paying little to household expenses. Thus youths living the good life until their late twenties is how the public see the youth of today. Due to this Australia’s general public support such a dramatic welfare reform as a much needed change, without understanding the issue as a whole. So, where do the youth that do not meet these stereotypical patterns and do not tick the box of the welfare reform go, what can they do? As anyone who tries to apply for a welfare payment knows, you have to have a valid address. However, without financial assistance, such as a welfare payment, how do you pay your bills, buy food or secure housing? These are just the tip of the iceberg in relation to the issues that an ex-foster care youth faces when the safety-net of the foster care system are no longer available (Dyck, 2014p. 168). Who will lookout for them? Where is the welfare reform that takes this group of venerable youth into consideration? In such circumstances ex-foster care youth, and many other youths, find it difficult to apply the statement that “youth should be learning or earning”. It is not that youth do not want study or work, but that it often creates more challenges than it solves. To be learning you need a safe secure place to live and a reasonable income that can pay your bills, buy food and school books, pay for public transport, etc., and to work you often need skills that take education. Many youth that are learning and earning still struggle to meet most of the basic needs above, more than once going without one need to acquire another, or not managing either effectively when attempting both simultaneously(Linney, 2013,p.24 ). The McClure report’s portrayal of youth as welfare dependents need to be examined, especially from the perspective of non-stereotypical groups of youths, such as ex-foster care children. These youth need support, they need understanding, and sometimes that is forgotten when reforms are made and budget cuts are a key focus. Already disempowered by what life has presented to them thus far, these vulnerable youths struggle with an unsympathetic welfare system that seems to make these youths feel that they are yet again facing insurmountable odds on surviving. The example of ex-foster care youths are just one example of important aspects missed by the McClure report. Although welfare reforms are a necessary requirement, it is key to view all aspects of a population that could receive payments before making major changes, in order to avoid leaving vulnerable groups out in the cold. It is my hope that a more holistic approach is taken prior to major reforms in Australia’s welfare system being made.
Reference List
(Herlocker, 2006, p….) Fox and Manley (2009, p. 5649) Dyck, R. (2014). Youth education for social responsibility. Journal of Systems Research and Behavioral Science 32 168-174.doi10.1002/sres.2256.
Herlocker, L. K. (2006). Confronting college: foster care youth deciding whether to participate in higher education programs. (Thesis/Dissertation).
Linney, J. (2013). Offenders, welfare reforms and housing. Journal Safer communities.12(1) 24-25.dio10.1108/17578041311293116 Sooryamoorthy, R. (2011). Communication, youth, social change and…. Journal of International Sociology, 26(5) 604-612.doi10.1177/02685809.
Max Thomas
April 10, 2015 at 3:01 am
Welfare reform
Broadly speaking, Jessica Brennand outlines the "raison d'être" for trade unionism. In the absence of negotiating power gained by concerted action, who can be surprised that exploitation results. If trade unions are a necessary evil, it's because they are the product of laissez-faire economics.