You will find below the link to a revealing piece of qualitative research from New South Wales, Australia. To what extent do you think this perspective resonates across the oceans?

Inequality in Australia: A Young Person’s Perspective

Prepared by Youth Action and Western Sydney Regional Information and Research Service (WESTIR)

About Youth Action

Youth Action is the peak organisation representing young people and youth services in NSW. Our work helps build the capacity of young people, youth workers and youth services, and we advocate for positive change on issues affecting these groups.

It is the role of Youth Action to:

• Respond to social and political agendas relating to young people and the youth service sector.
• Provide proactive leadership and advocacy to shape the agenda on issues affecting young people and youth services.
• Collaborate on issues that affect young people and youth workers.
• Promote a positive profile in the media and the community of young people and youth services.
• Build capacity for young people to speak out and take action on issues that affect them.
• Enhance the capacity of the youth services sector to provide high quality services.
• Ensure Youth Action’s organisational development, efficiency, effectiveness and good

The conclusion of the research emphasises housing as the area of most entrenched inequality, which chimes with the concerns expressed by a group of young people I was chatting with in the North-West of England a few months ago – hardly robust evidence, I know but not without significance!

Equitable access to education, housing and employment was regarded as essential for leading a full and healthy life. Interestingly, of the three topics, housing was seen as the area with the most entrenched inequality, with no respondents citing that affordability or inequality was not an issue or calling for policy actions that might increase inequality. In the topics of education and employment, some young people argued for further privatisation and deregulation – policy approaches that arguably would increase existing inequalities. However, housing was viewed by all respondents as a fundamental right. Young people were worried about the future, seeing education as a pathway to gain the qualifications needed for a fulfilling, well-paying job, which would allow them to afford rent and maybe buy a house in the future. However, buying a house was a distant and perhaps impossible dream rather than something they could plan. The responses provided by young people to the three topics discussed here, education, employment, and housing, reveal a politically and socially engaged cohort who are concerned about equality, and who want to see a better future both for themselves and for generations to come.