Isabel, Nick and Alan have very little in common. But before they were born, their parents made a decision that would follow them for more than three decades.
They, along with 164 other children born in inner-city Melbourne in 1990, would be part of a longitudinal study into inequality, run by the Brotherhood of St Laurence. The twists and turns of their lives would be tracked against the circumstances of their birth to determine if and how access to resources and support in childhood shaped their opportunities later in life.
Now, after 34 years, that study is wrapping up. Life Chances, which has been compared with the UK series Seven Up!, followed its participants from birth to adulthood, examining issues such as housing, income, maternal and child health, family structure, language barriers, education and job opportunities. Fourteen research phases have been completed, resulting in dozens of publications and academic papers, three documentaries and a book.
Throughout it all, one persistent observation has become clear: while class matters, and the circumstances into which you’re born matter, inequality in Australia is ultimately a policy choice.
Why these kids?
Isabel’s mother split from her father before she was born, and the family moved around a lot, particularly after Isabel’s mother qualified as a Steiner teacher. They lived in New Zealand, came back to Melbourne, then spent six months in Mexico and Central America when she was 14. Later, she went on exchange to France.
These early experiences set Isabel up for a life of travel, including teaching English in China for three years after she finished school. It was the travel that first opened her eyes to her family’s circumstances.
“I think my mum did a really good job at not showing me that we didn’t have much money,” Isabel tells Guardian Australia.”
The babies recruited for Life Chances were from parents living in the Melbourne suburbs of Fitzroy or Collingwood at the time of their birth. The suburbs were on the cusp of gentrification, diverse in terms of culture and class. The initial cohort was a roughly even mix of low, middle and higher income families. Almost a third of participants were from migrant or refugee backgrounds, and a quarter were in public housing.
Dr Dina Bowman, principal research fellow at Brotherhood of St Laurence, says the early researchers were keen to understand how government policy and social programs materially affected people’s lives, and in particular, the lives of low-income families.
What they found was that the erosion of the postwar social contract, and the fraying of public services and the social safety net hit some people harder than others.
“We’re never going to live in a perfect world; there’s always going to be some inequality,” Bowman says. “But when you think about the nature of inequality, over the last 34 years, a series of policy decisions have been made that have shifted risk on to individuals and households.”
The early years of the study were shaped by a period of recession and privatisation – acute in Victoria – and this would substantially shape the job market and support systems the participants entered into as adults. Youth unemployment grew as the relationship between education and stable employment disintegrated, as did the link between having a job and being financially secure. The cost of housing increased while investment in public housing fell. While opportunities for women have opened up, gender inequity persists. The risks of insecurity have been increased by the erosion of government support services.
Children from more advantaged backgrounds were cushioned from the worst effects of insecurity, the researchers found, but “the odds are stacked against those who can’t seem to break free of poverty and disadvantage, no matter how hard they try”.
Many of the policy recommendations the researchers made still remain: fair and adequate income support; accessible and responsive health and support services for parents from non-English speaking backgrounds; reinvestments in safe, secure public housing, accessible public transport infrastructure, and more.
‘Money was definitely challenging’
Alan’s parents migrated to Australia from Hong Kong in the mid-80s. His mother was a homemaker, while his father worked long hours as a waiter. They lived in the public housing flats in Fitzroy, but bought a house just before Alan was born.
“I would term my parents as lower-working class. Money was definitely challenging to come by,” Alan says now. “But even though it was hard to come by, I think my mum shielded me a lot from the struggles she experienced.”
Just four years into Life Chances, differences had started to emerge between children whose parents were born in Australia and those who were migrants. About 63% of the non-English speaking families were living on incomes below the poverty line.
Alan’s family spoke Cantonese at home and mainly socialised with other Hongkongers. He was on the cusp of adulthood when he picked up a weekend job in hospitality – and suddenly had an insight into how hard his parents worked.
“I remember not seeing my dad for days – and usually only really, really late at night – because he would work from 10am to 10pm most days, and he had one day off a week,” he says.
“I didn’t really understand and appreciate it until probably when I was 17, when I started working casually.”
Alan is now married, with a three-year-old and another baby on the way. He is a qualified occupational therapist and manages a large team of practitioners. He owns a small unit, but a few months ago, the little family moved in with his in-laws so they could rent it out and save money. They’re all things he wouldn’t have, he says, without family support and access to Centrelink payments at what he calls the “sliding doors moments” in his life.
Alan is grateful for the work his parents did to set his sister and himself up, and what he sees as the sacrifice they made moving to Australia.
“It’s probably the best decision they made for me and my sister and our future,” he says. “Yes, there’s inequality everywhere, there’s exploitation, but I think I was definitely presented with the best opportunities to be – in the eyes of some – successful and fortunate and blessed.”
Does luck play a part?
Luck is something all the Life Chances participants reference in some way. They implicitly recognise that things could have been different for them; that hard work is not the only thing that shapes a life.
Nick still lives less than 10 minutes from where he grew up and where his parents still live. His father was an academic and his mother an occupational therapist. “I think my family was a little bit on the better-off side than the others,” he says.
After attending the local state primary school, he went to Wesley College, one of Melbourne’s prestigious private schools, where he completed an International Baccalaureate. He studied neuroscience at the University of Melbourne and completed a diploma of modern languages in Mandarin.
After that, he travelled to China on a government-funded study scholarship, where he networked to build a tourism business. He’s still self-employed – importing products from Korea now, after his tourism company took a hit during Covid.
A few years ago, the Brotherhood of St Laurence produced a Life Chances video showing a side-by-side comparison of the trajectory of Nick’s life with that of another participant, James, who had grown up in public housing and lost his mother when he was a child, moving into state care. For Nick, it was illuminating.
“I saw a little bit of his story, and it’s very different to mine,” Nick says. “So I just feel lucky to be able to see some comparisons between what I’ve been able to achieve and the opportunities I’ve been given in my life.”
Generational struggle
Life Chances has been particularly concerned with education. When participants turned 30, researchers conducted comparative interviews with them and their parents. They found a “striking difference” in the insecurity experienced by the younger participants – even those who had higher education qualifications.
Precarious employment was common, despite participants’ socioeconomic background. Many continued to rely on their families for financial and housing support, and said they would struggle to meet large or unexpected expenses.
During Covid, Isabel returned from overseas and went back to living with her mother in rural Victoria, working odd jobs while trying to build a career in cultural materials conservation.
Isabel was conscious of debt when she made the choice to study. She knew she would never be able to afford to pay fees upfront, and the Hecs/Help scheme caps the amount of money a student can borrow from the government to fund their tertiary education. She would have one shot at it.
She, too, speaks of luck, and of how precious family support is: it meant a room to crash in for free when she arrived home from overseas, and an environment in which education was valued, even if it entailed a difficult career journey.
“The more I’m out in the world, the more I see that how you’re raised and how your parents have been raised can really affect your life outcomes,” she says.
Bowman believes the fact that the study is not merely an academic exercise has been a key part of its success and the high retention rate of participants over the years.
“We’ve been doing this research for a purpose: to better understand the nature of inequality and to try to influence policy changes to support a fairer Australia,” she says.
The study is winding up because of a combination of funding and ethical considerations. So how long is it OK to keep asking people about the details of their personal lives? Nick is curious about what researchers might find if it continued.
“I’m older than the age my mum was when she signed her son up to this study, and I haven’t got kids, I haven’t got a partner, I haven’t got a house – I haven’t got a lot of things that she would have had a lot younger. So my generation is taking longer to get there.”
