Nation faces a 'disconnection crisis': Leigh

In a speech to be delivered to a Salvation Army conference on Wednesday, Dr Leigh is expected to warn the country faces a "disconnection crisis" as rates of volunteering and community participation decline while wealth disparities have surged.

The Labor assistant minister is due to say that the average Australian today had only half as many close friends as in the mid-1980s and knew only about half as many neighbours.

Separately, figures from the Melbourne Institute's Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey and from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show the frequency of social contact fell 11 per cent between 2001 and 2020 and increasing instances of loneliness, particularly among young people.

The AIHW said social isolation and loneliness can harm both physical and mental health and "are considered substantial health and wellbeing issues...because of the impact they have on people's lives".

Over a similar period, rates of income and wealth inequality have soared, Dr Leigh will say, citing research showing that between 1975 and 2021 real wages for the bottom 10 per cent of income earners grew by 33 per cent, compared with 55 per cent for those on median incomes and 81 per cent for the highest earners.

When also taking into account investment income, the disparities become even more stark.

In the 30 years to 2020, cumulative real incomes for the lowest paid increased by a measly 5 per cent, while for those on median incomes the gain was about 20 per cent and for the top 20 per cent of earners it was 40 per cent.

Dr Leigh will say that the most affluent experienced the biggest income lift by far over the period. The top 1 per cent, with an average income of $350,000, enjoyed a 70 per cent jump in their disposable income over the three decades and those in the rarified 0.1 per cent income bracket, earning around $1.2 million a year, experienced a 120 per cent surge in earnings.

"Over the past generation, Australia has become more unequal, and more disconnected. We have become less a nation of 'we', and more a country of 'me'," he is expected to say, highlighting research findings showing that those with less wealth and lower incomes are less connected to their community.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows those with a university degree are almost twice as likely to do unpaid voluntary work as those without, and almost a third of those in the top 20 per cent income bracket volunteered compared with around one in five of those in the lowest bracket. There were even bigger differences when it came to rates civic or political engagement.

A study involving almost 76,000 people in the US, Britain and Europe, published in Plos One, found that greater income inequality was associated with a higher prevalence of loneliness and its associated costs in term of physical health and mental and emotional wellbeing.

According to the study, possible reasons include a lack of resources to engage in social behaviour, living in conditions less conducive to socialising and higher rates of distrust and a sense of deprivation.

Dr Leigh is due to say that the government is concerned about the erosion of the sense of community that has occurred and is acting to change the situation.

"Humans are fundamentally a social species, and ... these ties that bind us to one another are vital to living a good life," he will say, adding that, "as a government, we are working hard to build communities".

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