Rising wealth and income inequality in Australia and New Zealand: A radical social work critique and response

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Wealth and income inequality is increasing in most societies, including Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, with detrimental social impacts. However, despite professional marginality, the renewal of radical social work critiques with their emphasis on structural issues highlight, the need for alternative practice responses.METHOD: We employed a critical and synthetic review of the literature to examine major trends in wealth and income inequality (both globally, and in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand) and the social work responses to increasing economic inequality.CONCLUSIONS: Resurgent wealth and income inequality has reached new crisis points in both countries but individualising analyses and programmes render most social work responses complicit with neoliberal governance. These responses do little to reduce inequality. Alternatives promoting economic equality can be found in radical social work approaches.IMPLICATIONS: At a minimum, effective radical responses to economic inequality must advocate critical social analyses in social work education and practice, including fostering practitioners' capacity for critical reflection, policy practice and political activism.

Caught between a rock and a hard place: Social work in non-government organisations

“…This may suggest a shift in the social work agenda. Challenging social injustices, particularly those policies that undermine human rights, is not an easy task and may consequently often be reduced to rhetoric (Morley & Ablett, 2017). The level of access by service QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ORIGINAL ARTICLE users to necessary resources such as secure housing is what determines the degree of ability for social workers to effect change; if these resources are not readily available, the ability of social workers to influence the macro socioeconomic structure or have the capacity to effect policy change is diminished (Sadan, 1997).…”

“…The type of social work that fulfils its ethical mandate, as set out in the IFSW Global Social Work Statement of Ethical Principles (2018), has been termed critical/radical social work (Ferguson, 2009;Hyslop, 2016;Morley, 2016). According to Morley and Ablett (2017), radical social work challenges the social structures that disadvantage, and can lead social work through its capacity to analyse the socio-economic-political context that produces oppression. This type of critical/ radical practice, according to Stark (2018), is merely meeting the pre-neoliberal social work imperative of being socially critical, political practitioners who challenge and influence the macro structures in society, and so participate in the development of social policy.…”

Can a Paradigm Shift from Risk Management to Critical Reflection Improve Child-Inclusive Practice?

“…Despite recognition of the increasing complexity and uncertainty in working with children and families, particularly as burgeoning inequality creates more risk and greater needs [21,31,43], services, including those involved in the protection of children, erroneously rely heavily on actuarial risk assessment tools to standardise practice and assume accountability in decision-making [17,44]. Within this construction, professional competence became predictive risk management practice, whereby 'problematic' groups with risk characteristics are identified (i.e., stigmatised) and responded to by designing preventative social programs [35].…”

Toward an inclusive digital economy for all: Perspectives from an intersectional feminist social work lens

“…The wealth and income gap have exponentially widened in the last two decades. The richest 1 percent have seen their incomes increased by 60 percent, with the financial crisis further accelerating such increases (Morley and Ablett, 2017). Oxfam (2019) reported that the wealth of all the world’s billionaires in just 1 year had increased to US$900 billion, which equates to US$2.5 billion a day.…”