Unemployment in Australia Through a Conflict Perspective.

10). However, mass unemployment, such as in Britain in the 1980s, becomes a public issue where a ‘structure of opportunities collapse’ and a range of solutions from political and economic institutions are required (Mills 1959, p. 10). Furthermore, Mills (1959) argues that public issues often explain what someone might consider to be a personal trouble, therefore, stating that people need the “sociological imagination” to realise that their personal troubles are embedded in public issues (p.10).

Unemployment refers to when an individual is actively seeking work and is aged 15 years or over, but is unable to find work (not hired). There are many causes and effects of unemployment that result in different actions being made by the Australian government through their use of both monetary policy as well as fiscal policy.

Marx 's conflict theory has a very distinct ideology, it is stated that it mainly focuses on the causes and effect of class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The Bourgeoisie represented the members of a higher society which held onto the majority of the wealth and means also known as the owners of the way of manufacture and the capitalistic. While the proletariat class was constructed by individuals who belong to the working class or the poor. While they would focus on the economical, societal, and governmental implications of the rise of the capitalist economy in Europe. With the rise of the capitalist economy, it was theorized that the bourgeoisie,

Analyse the economic and social costs and benefits of inequality in distribution of income in Australia.

Mills continues about the unemployed individual, '...but when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15 million men are unemployed, that is an issue, and we may not hope to find its solution within the range of opportunities open to any one individual'. (Mills 1959: 9)

There are a few key points to consider when determining if something is a social problem. Some elements of a social problem may be objective and some may be subjective. The first two objective points are first that there must be some existence of a social condition, or a situation that someone has in society. Second that problems are recognized either through the things we see, or through things we hear through the media (radio, television, newspapers etc.). Some subjective elements of social problems are that: the issue is harmful to either society as whole, or a particular group within society, and change needs to occur. Ultimately,

“In early 2016, the ABS Labor force found that 258,000 youth aged 15-24 was unemployed” (ABS, 2016), accounting for over a third of total unemployment (721,400 people)” (ABS, 2016). There are several reasons youth unemployment exists in Australia, with the primary cause being low economic

A Social Issue is where a whole society or a group of people within the society by affected by a specific problem which usually take a large number of people within the society to rectify or solve the problem at hand.

Once a you become unemployed, however, you become powerless, desperate for any source of an income. Once in this position, an individual is likely to take a job which is below their capabilities and for less pay.  The difference in class and standing continues to increase. Those with money have the luxury of waiting for a job that strikes their interest, not just a job to make minimum wage.  They can wait until an appropriate job comes up or they can further their education to improve their position even more. Economically, the world is entering into a new phase in which fewer workers will be needed to produce the goods and services for the global population.  For most of the modern era, people's worth has been determined by the value of their labor and skills.

Because the people have the tendency to be ethnocentric, they grouped them self in classes. The Social class is a system of stratification based on access to such sources as wealth, property, power and prestige. We learn from the history that the stratification had existed in all areas of human civilization. It has essentially disproportionately division of property. Because of this inequality is born the conflict between classes. Conflict Theory is defined as a Sociological approach that sees

All human societies have been class based in some way, shape or form and, interpreting this in the most basic way, it can be said that in every known human society there has been a fundamental division between two broad social groups, the buorgeoisie that own and control the means of production, and the proletariat who own nothing but their ability to sell their labour power (that is, their ability to work) in return for wages. The anger and dissent over the differences in social classes has never wavered

The conflict theory explains that there is always a disparity that exists in the society due to the presence of limited resources as well as the variations in the skills and knowledge. It will always happen that in the society there are the wealthy and elite, the middle-class people and the poor who have the lower status in the society. The children from these social statuses will always have varying education success, employment opportunities and eventually economic success (Zucman, 2014).

A social problem is any condition or behavior that has negative consequences for large numbers of people and that is generally recognized as a condition or behavior that needs to be addressed. Social issue is a problem that influences a considerable number of the individuals within a society. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's social issue is the source of a conflicting opinion on the

Unemployment is recognised as one of the most challenging social problems currently facing Australia. In the last two decades and more recently with the global recession high levels of unemployment have become an established feature of the South Australian social and economic landscape, with young people aged 15 to 24 years among those hardest hit by unemployment.

Human societies have been class based in some way and the class factor has been the most basic dividing or differentiating factor between broad social groups. In the economic sphere that Marx’s theory focuses on, there is a class that own and control means of economic production which could be referred to as the upper class, and there is the class that maybe own nothing, but their ability to sell their labor power in return for wages which could be referred to as the middle or low class. From that understanding, and based on the conflict theory, one might argue that unequal distribution of resources and access