New chief investigators to take centre into a new direction After a successful re-bid, the Life Course Centre (LCC) continues to research ways to tackle economic disadvantage. Written by Deborah Cobb-Clark, Nick Glozier and Agnieszka Tymula
The Australian Research Council in 2019 announced over $32 million in research funding to continue the support for the Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course. Professors Deborah Cobb-Clark and Agnieszka Tymula from the School of Economics and Professor Nick Glozier from the Faculty of Medicine and Health are the Chief Investigators involved in this Centre. The Centre aims to deliver transformative research and policy
recommendations to break the cycle of deep and persistent disadvantage for Australians. While it may seem that in a country as wealthy as Australia, the problem of economic disadvantage is not significant, unfortunately in the last 20 years, economic inequality in Australia has increased dramatically. The income share going to the top 1% has increased so much that in 2015, an Australian in the top 20% of income 14
earned five times as much as someone in the bottom 20% and held 70 times the wealth. On current rates of social mobility, it is projected that Australian children now in the bottom decile of family income will have to wait more than 100 years to attain average incomes. Currently, more than one third of Australia’s population receive welfare payments, and their future lifetime cost is estimated at $4.8 trillion, or approximately three times Australia’s current GDP.
