Identify one example of digital social inequality in Australia and explain how it impacts different social groups in Australia (5 marks)

 Identify one example of digital social inequality in Australia and explain how it impacts different social groups
in Australia (5 marks)
The modern Australia is highly digitalized in the day-to-day activities. Consequently, there are many groups
that have been left marginalized by digitalization, more so, digital social inequalities have been very rampant in
the rural areas of Australia. Socio-spatial polarisation refers to divergence over time in the life chances and
socio-economic circumstances of low income and middle to high income populations. The growing intensity of
the gap between people advantaged and disadvantaged by the restructuring process is expressed in inequality of
income, disparities in the availability and quality of public services, employment status, growing poverty
(particularly among women) and dependence and welfare service provision.
The impacts of digital social inequalities are spread unevenly across different social groups, ethnical groups,
gender and localizations. The prosperity of smaller and rural areas has declined as economic growth has tended
to concentrate in metropolitan areas. Within cities, the impacts of economic change are differentiated due to
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urban structure, class, gender and ethnic segmentation in the workforce, and the way that the income effect of
employment restructuring interacts with housing markets. Existing patterns of residential segregation are
overlain by the uneven impacts of the costs and benefits of restructuring. The result is a spatially disparate
pattern of income distribution and of access to collective social and economic resources such as healthcare and
education, and in the quality of the living environment. Social polarisation takes on a spatial dimension to
become socio-spatial polarisation which is embedded in the larger context of global economic change.
Australasian cities have long established patterns of social contrast between urban neighbourhoods. For
instance, contrasts between Melbourne’s high status eastern and bayside suburbs and the low status industrial
suburbs of the west, outer south-east and outer north have a long history. Income is a critical factor underlying
polarisation. In Australia, the top 25 per cent of families now receive about 5 times as much disposable income
as the lowest 25 per cent.
The shift towards a ‘service economy’ has a great deal to do with social and economic polarisation, creating
divergent income paths. One route has created a group of relatively highly skilled workers. The other has
generated a larger group of workers marginalised from the chance of fulltime, well-paid work.