By Peter Boyle
The establishment press celebrated "middle Australia" on October 30. The Australian Institute of Family Studies, they happily reported, had confirmed that "middle Australia" was alive and well and quite happy with its lot.
"Life in the middle lane is just the speed", crowed a headline in Sydney's Daily Telegraph. Melbourne's Age declared: "Not a soul speaks ill of Box Hill" on its front page but faltered on page nine: "With no jobs, there is no place like home". But in case we got the wrong idea, a second headline on the same page reassured us: "It's just what the Proctors ordered".
The Melbourne suburb of Box Hill was the second of 12 locations to be studied by the AIFS over three years in a project on "Australian living standards", commissioned by the Prime Minister's Department.
Politicians are forever going on about "middle Australia". Labor, Coalition and even the Democrats claim to pitch their policies to this constituency. Some commentators blame middle Australia for the increasingly similar politics and ideology of the major parties. But just who makes up "middle Australia"? And are these people as well off and contented as we are told?
The 480-page Box Hill study purports to describe life in a "quintessentially middle class suburb of an Australian city". Five hundred and twenty randomly selected households were interviewed, and information on the locality held by government instrumentalities was collected.
Box Hill, 15 km from Melbourne's central business district, is an established suburb relatively well serviced with transport, schools and shopping centres. Its conversion from country town to suburb began early in this century with the help of the Lilydale railway line.
Many families surveyed had two or three cars, 84% owned or were buying their home, and most said they were contented. Some 75% had microwave ovens, 56% had dishwashing machines, and 74% of households not dependent on social security had private health insurance.
Better-paid workers
In late 1991, when the survey was done, 66% of working fathers in the sample were managers, professionals or para-professionals. However, only 26% of working mothers had these sort of jobs; 42% worked as clerks or sales workers.
The 1986 census found that 42% of working men in Box Hill and 33% of working women were "higher level, white collar workers", 19% of males and 51% of females were "lower level, white collar workers" and 39% of males and 16% of females were "blue-collar workers".
The AIFS also found that 74% of working fathers and 85% of working mothers were wage or salary earners. So while many Box Hill residents might describe themselves as "middle class" most are really only better-paid members of the working class.
The first suburb studied by the AIFS in this project was the outer south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Berwick. Box Hill residents were much better off by comparison. Box Hill was better serviced with public transport, hospitals and child-care centres. Some 44% of Box Hill households surveyed had annual incomes above $51,000, 27% between $36,000 and $51,000, 17% $24,000-$36,000 and only 12% below $24,000. Only 7% of households surveyed in Box Hill had incomes below the Henderson poverty line.
Many of the poorest households were sole parent families, which comprised 12.1% of households with dependent children (national average=15%).
The establishment media made much of the finding that nearly half of the surveyed households had assets of $200,000 or more. But most of this was equity in the homes they lived in. Even in the highest income group in Box Hill, only 29% had real estate other than the house they lived in, and only 33% had bonds, debentures or shares. Only 27% of all households had received some inheritance.
Moreover, 91% of those in the lowest income bracket (less than $24,000) said they were either spending more than they earn or just meeting their bills, as were 79% of the next bracket and 77% of the second highest income bracket. Only 3% of the highest income bracket and 1% of the second highest said they could "save a lot".
In the 12 months prior to the survey, 41% of households had to cope with a shortage of money. Nineteen per cent didn't service or repair their cars, 17% fell behind in gas, electricity or water bills, 11% got behind with mortgage payments, 11% got help from relatives and 10% didn't pay insurance bills. In the lowest income bracket, 28% had to carry out at least four of these sort of measures.
The reasons given for the shortage of money were rising cost of living (60%), wages not high enough (38%), housing costs (22%), unemployment (21%) and decline in business income (21%).
Box Hill is older and more comfortable suburbia, but is not a suburb of the ruling elite, which recent studies carried out by Phil Raskall of the University of NSW show to be gaining in wealth.
Box Hill is also increasingly multi-ethnic. The 1986 census showed that 33% of its residents were born overseas, and 47% had at least one parent who was born overseas. Some 16% of the parents surveyed speak a language other than English at home. In declining order these languages were Chinese, Greek and Vietnamese.
Widening gap
The AIFS report's co-author, Helen Brownlee, says that the first two studies had shown a "worrying trend" towards a widening of the gap between richer and poorer sections of people who work.
This trend was also reported in a national study released in October by Dr Ann Harding of University of Canberra's Centre of Social and Economic Modelling. She also found that households with children and only one working income earner now made up almost half of the lowest 10% of income earning households. The rest of the households in this poorest layer depended on welfare, and sole parents were among the worst off. On the other hand double income households are 36% of the top 10%.
Family income levels in Box Hill also depended strongly on there being two income earners in each family. The survey found that 60% of households had both parents working. Some 70% of mothers surveyed worked, but 61% of working mothers worked only part-time.
The proportion of parents unemployed was not dramatically higher than in Berwick. In Box Hill the unemployment rate for fathers was 5.4% compared to a national male unemployment rate of 7.3% at the time of the survey. For mothers it was 6.8% compared to a national average of 7.9%. Youth unemployment was 8% for boys and 4% for girls compared to an average of 30% in Melbourne's western suburbs.
However, developments since the survey might have changed this situation. According to Department of Social Security figures, the number of people receiving unemployment benefits from the Box Hill office rose 62% between 1991 and 1992.
Uncertain future
Even back in 1991, fewer than half the fathers surveyed (47%) believed their jobs were secure. Jeff Kennett was not yet premier of Victoria, and his plan to slash the state's public sector work force by 20% was still to be revealed. Since then he has axed 20,000 jobs, and 18,000 more will go this financial year.
We don't know exactly how this has hit supposedly comfortable Box Hill, but the AIFS found that 27% of working fathers and 20% of working mothers were in the public sector.
The Harding report also found that many of the people who lost their jobs during the recession had been part of two-income families, so some of the pain of the recession was shouldered by so-called middle Australia.
In 1992 there were frequent media reports of widespread retrenchment of middle managers and administrators from large firms. Statistical evidence of this is not yet available. Studies in the United States have found that unemployment in the latest recession impacted hard on "middle America" as corporations sought to get "leaner and meaner".
According to the National Australia Bank's September quarter survey of Australian employers, larger companies intend to continue cutting back on employee numbers. Chief executive officers of 59 of the 100 biggest corporations said that they would be cutting staff. This was up from 53% six months earlier. Only 3% (8% six months ago) said they would be hiring more staff.
Even at the time of the survey, the unemployed in Box Hill were pessimistic about their future. "Many of those who were unemployed felt depressed, found bills difficult to pay, were having to make do without such things as new clothes and dinners out, and were finding that their self-esteem was being eroded", the AIFS report said. This bit of middle Australia was not too happy.
Much of the contentment of Box Hill families seems to depend on their hopes for their children's futures. Most expect their children to go to university. Hence 63% of 15-19 year olds are in school (74% in state schools). Parents live in hope that their children will find their way into upper tier of waged and salaried workers.