Now we are 21: an overview of the longitudinal Life Chances Study

The Brotherhood of St Laurence’s longitudinal Life Chances Study started in Melbourne in 1990. The study has comprised ten stages, the most recent completed in 2012 when the children, who were born in 1990, were 21 years old.This paper presents an overview of the study by outlining the published findings of each stage. It is designed to enable readers to follow up the diverse topics covered over 21 years, to point to the findings and the policy implications that have emerged and to act as a guide for possible future analysis.The study was designed as a population study in an inner urban area. It sought to explore the life chances of a group of children who were born at the same time in the same place but into very diverse families. While the study sample is not representative of all Australian children, aspects of the experiences of these families are likely to be shared by many others. The study has continued to follow the families as they moved away from the inner suburbs.Readers can also turn to the original reports for their rich detail including the parents’ and young people’s own descriptions of their experiences as well as quantitative analysis. The reports of the early stages are available through the Brotherhood of St Laurence and some libraries. The reports of stages 6 onwards are available on the Brotherhood’s website (www.bsl.org.au)

Turning 21: Life chances and uncertain transitions

  Traditionally, the transition from school to work has been important for young adults, and turning 21 was recognised as the marker of adulthood in Australia, when young people had jobs—and even families of their own. Social and economic changes over the past 30 years or so have made the transition from school to work more complex and less clear-cut. This report documents the factors that shape the lives of 123 young participants in the Life Chances Study, as they turn 21. Key points •    Stereotypes about young people obscure the diverse and complex lives of 21-year-olds. This diversity is shaped by family income, gender, ethnic background and resources. The 21-year-olds included university and TAFE students, full-time and part-time workers, young parents and jobseekers. Many were both studying and working. •    Those with fewer resources were more likely to identify as adults. They faced challenges that those with more resources could avoid. While some welcomed adulthood, others felt the burden of responsibilities. •    21-year-olds continued to rely on their families for advice, and emotional and financial support. The unequal access to resources reinforced inequalities because even though most had jobs, many still relied on their parents’ financial support—if they could. •    Disadvantage need not be intergenerational. Disadvantage or advantage persisted for some families, but not for all. Childhood in a low-income family did not necessarily condemn children to continuing disadvantage. •    Definitions of a ‘successful’ transition must take into account young people’s multiple activities and their wellbeing. Most 21-year-olds aspired to full-time employment. In this study, most of those who did not have a job and were not studying or in training had caring duties or mental health issues. Labelling these young people as ‘disengaged’ does not sufficiently capture their level of activity or wellbeing. •    Transitions for 21-year-olds are uncertain, but the social and economic resources needed to address this uncertainty are not evenly distributed. Those from high-income backgrounds with strong social supports had greater ‘choice’ while negotiating their pathways than those from lower income backgrounds. •    Policies need to address multidimensional disadvantage. The findings have implications for addressing socioeconomic inequalities as well as for targeted career and vocational guidance. Background The Life Chances Study is a unique longitudinal study initiated by the Brotherhood of St Laurence in 1990 to explore the impacts of family income and associated factors on children over time. It commenced as a study of 167 infants born in inner Melbourne and has followed the families as they have moved elsewhere. In stage 10 of the study we surveyed 123 young people and their parents to see how they were dealing with the important transitions towards adulthood. We also undertook 25 interviews to explore their situations in more depth

Cultural Economies of Hard Rubbish

This study examined informal practices of hard rubbish reuse (or ‘gleaning’) by households, and found them to be characterised by the expression of positive values associated with not-wasting, caring for others, and social responsibility. Executive summary Previous research in Melbourne has suggested that informal practices of hard rubbish reuse (or ‘gleaning’) by households may significantly decrease the amount of landfill. Despite this, many municipal councils throughout Melbourne have sought to make gleaning illegal. Those councils, such as Moreland, that have supported personal gleaning, have expressed concerns around managing issues of dumping and ‘professional’ gleaning. This qualitative study of 15 households in the Moreland Council region aimed to provide more in-depth knowledge of why and how people glean. Building on previous work on the political economy of hard rubbish, we saw a need for a more culturall-inflected understanding of this lifestyle practice in relation to wider consumption practices, cultural perspectives on commodities, and perceived changing norms and values around responsibility and ownership, ‘waste’ and value, and environmental or ethical consumption. By providing a more complex understanding of the culture and practices of gleaning our concern has been to locate the potential ‘place’ and role of gleaning activities, particularly for domestic reuse, within councils and communities and indicate the social, economic, and other implications and potential limitations of current strategies and policies to manage and control hard rubbish reuse. The study reveals the practice of gleaning as characterised by, and as allowing, the expression of positive values associated with not-wasting, caring for others, and social responsibility. What the study found was that it fosters a sense of connection across generations and with the wider community. Interviewees associated the opposite values of wastefulness, selfishness, and social isolation with mainstream consumerism; gleaning is explicitly characterised by study participants as an active and performative rejection of this. The report concludes, in light of these study findings, with a list of recommendations for Moreland City Council. This report was prepared for Moreland City Council by RMIT’s School of Media and Communication, in collaboration with Swinburne University of Technology’s Institute for Social Research