Australia’s wealthiest area when it comes to social advantage isn’t Sydney’s ritzy eastern suburbs but a district 20km from the city centre, a study has found.
While Sydney’s east is home to the nation’s most expensive beachside mansions and Australia’s wealthiest multi-millionaire chief executives, the upper north shore has the lowest level of poverty.
Gentrified parts of inner-city Melbourne along the Yarra River have Australia’s lowest overall rates of poverty, but Sydney’s leafy north has more suburbs with a higher quality of life.
Australia’s wealthiest area when it comes to social advantage isn’t Sydney’s ritzy eastern suburbs (Point Piper pictured) but a district 20km from the city centre, a study found
Sydney’s upper north shore had Australia’s lowest level of poverty, with St Ives (home to the Pymble Golf Club)
Conversely, a suburb in south-west Sydney with an immigration detention centre, an Adelaide area with retrenched Holden car factory workers, outer suburbs of Hobart and remote Aboriginal communities were considered the worst places to raise a child, a study by two academics from the University of New South Wales and Flinders University revealed.
They also found that some of Melbourne’s most socially advantaged and disadvantaged suburbs shared a main road border.
Melbourne’s Docklands area and nearby East Melbourne, taking in the Cricket Ground, had the highest national overall score when it came to social advantage.
But when it came to choosing Australia’s best place to raise a child, St Ives on Sydney’s upper north shore was first with neighbouring Pymble and Turramurra doing even better than the wealthy eastern suburbs of Double Bay, Bellevue Hill and Point Piper, where former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull lives.
The Children’s Geographies report on poverty, by University of NSW senior research fellow Jennifer Skattebol and Flinders University Associate Professor Gerry Redmond, analysed data from Jesuit Social Services and Catholic Social Services Australia, rating local areas on 22 categories including unemployment, child malnutrition and domestic violence.
Their Dropping Off the Edge report concluded that a child growing up in a wealthier suburb was likely to be more successful later in life.
In Sydney, the difference between wealth and poverty is a one-hour drive from the north shore to Villawood, in the city’s south-west, which rated poorly when it came to household income and education.
Other parts of western Sydney including Blacktown, Cabramatta and Liverpool are also considered disadvantaged.
Boggabilla in north-western New South Wales on the Queensland border, did badly with poor literacy and numeracy while Wollongong, the steelmaking city south of Sydney, struggles with long-term unemployment.
In New South Wales, the areas in the north and west of the state were generally more disadvantaged, while regions along the coast and near the southern border fared much better.
Disadvantaged areas included Inverell in the north, and Bourke, Wilcannia, and Broken Hill in the far west.
In Melbourne, the stark difference between social advantage and disadvantage was a main road in the city’s north, 16km from the central business district.
Campbellfield was considered Victoria’s second most disadvantaged area, scoring poorly on education and family income.
But Somerton, one suburb away, was considered one of the state’s better off areas, with dramatically higher levels of education, despite only being across Cooper Street.
Ardeer, a similar distance from the city centre in Melbourne’s north-west, was considered the worst suburb to raise a child in the state, having Victoria’s worst long-term unemployment.
Across Melbourne, areas around Yarra Junction, Cranbourne, and Sunshine were also considered poorer.
Adelaide’s northern suburbs was considered to have Australia’s worst metropolitan poverty following the closure last year of the Holden car factory.
Elizabeth fared particularly badly when it came to having high unemployment, long-term unemployment, unskilled workers, housing stress, lack of post-school qualifications and disenchanted youth.
Gentrified parts of inner-city Melbourne along the Yarra River, with the Docklands area having Australia’s highest overall score for social advantage
Villawood, by comparison in Sydney’s south-west, was one of the most disadvantaged areas in New South Wales with low household income and education levels
Australia’s haves and have nots can be divided into the wealthier and poorer states
In Sydney itself, the upper north shore was home to Australia’s most socially advantaged suburbs, showing a sharp contrast with poverty in the city’s south-west
Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, a remote Aboriginal community in the state’s north-west, also scored poorly, along with Cooper Pedy, a small mining town.
The report authors said poverty was often inter-generational.
‘A significant number of young Australians who grow up in poverty find it difficult to engage with formal education; they leave school early or cannot navigate from education to the world of work,’ the report said.
The authors said their research found that children from poorer suburbs have less access to recreational, sporting, and academic facilities, and experience social exclusion across neighbourhood facilities and social networks.
They found youths from affluent suburbs are less likely to participate in activities they perceive would be attended by disadvantaged children and, conversely, disadvantaged youths avoided using facilities in affluent suburbs, concerned they would be worse-off if a conflict arose.
In southeast Queensland, areas around Noosa, Moreton Bay, Brisbane’s west, and the Gold Coast were the most advantaged.
Areas to the west such as Beaudesert, Ipswich, and Esk were classified as disadvantaged. The Sunshine Coast fared well, with Maroochydore one of the most advantaged areas.
In New South Wales, the areas in the north and west of the state were generally more disadvantaged, while areas along the coast and towards the southern border fared better
Disadvantaged areas included Inverell in the north, and Bourke (pictured), Wilcannia, and Broken Hill in the far west
In Victoria, around Melbourne and parts of the northeast and southwest of the state fared well.
In Melbourne city, areas around Hurstbridge in the north and Flinders in the south were considered affluent
In southeast Queensland, areas around Noosa, Moreton Bay, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast were the most advantaged
In Queensland as a whole, the most disadvantaged areas are in the Far North of the state and in the south-east corner
In Western Australia, parts of the north and the east, and areas to the east of Perth, are the most disadvantaged, with pockets advantaged areas throughout the state
In South Australia, only small parts of the state are classified as most advantaged, with disadvantaged areas making up the bulk of the state
Tasmania is a mix of most disadvantaged, disadvantaged and advantaged areas, with pockets of most advantaged in the north and south of the state