The Role of the Family in Australia's Asset Economy

Our June CHASM Seminar will be delivered by Monique McKenzie, Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney.

Monique will be visiting CHASM on 2nd June for 3 weeks as part of the International Visiting Fellow scheme. She will be working alongside Kris Fuzi looking at the interaction between precarious work and the asset-welfare state.

This seminar will give an overview of the asset economy as it is produced in the Australian context and presents some findings from current research into the causes and consequences of the asset economy, particularly in the lives of young adults. The historic prominence of widespread homeownership in Australia laid the foundations upon which the shifts in fiscal and monetary policy in the late twentieth century would lead to the rapid appreciation of property assets and the continued prominence of property ownership as the pathway towards wealth. The home has been recast not just as shelter but as a central pillar in Australia’s welfare provision and protection against risk.

The most prominent finding from the research has been that the family is remade by the asset-welfare state as the social safety net. By and large, families are tasked with ensuring that each family member can access the financial resources needed not only for subsistence but to achieve their broader aspirations of higher education and homeownership. 

The research uncovers the nuanced and strategic ways that families use their financial resources to be able to provide said support, mapping the inequalities that appear between families across the wealth spectrum. In doing so, it is argued that asset-inequality has become drawn across family lines.