Sociologically Considering Australia’s Rising Cost-of-living as Structural Violence

Articles Examining Cost-of-living from a Broad Historical Context

In order to sociologically analyse Australia’s current cost-of-living crisis, an understanding of past economic policies is necessary. Given the pivotal role neoliberalism plays in fomenting contemporary social issues, this section presents findings from articles examining the cost-of-living in historical context. Here, ‘historical’ is defined as the early implementation of neoliberal policies and their consequences since the 1970s.

Using Australia as a case study, Beer et al. (2016) explored the ways in which changing housing markets, economic conditions, and government policies have affected vulnerable individuals and households. Focusing on the 10-year period of economic and policy change in accordance with neoliberalism, Beer et al. (2016) estimated the prevalence of Australian households experiencing housing and employment insecurity based on data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. The article found that the economic gains achieved as a consequence of mining-related growth in the early 2000s were translated into greater employment security for some social groups. This excluded Australian women, who largely missed out on the growth in jobs. For the population as a whole, these employment gains were offset by increased housing insecurity as accommodation costs rose, with single parents being especially vulnerable to increased living costs (Beer et al., 2016).

In analysing neoliberal policy settings and their consequences, Beer et al. (2016) has successfully demonstrated the ways in which changing social policy, access to employment, and the housing market have worked in tandem to significantly affect the well-being of vulnerable groups, particularly single mothers (Beer et al., 2016). While this policy analysis revealed inequalities in the cost-of-living for disadvantaged people, a structural violence approach could help offer a theoretical explanation for these disparities since, “violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as un-equal life chances” (Galtung, 1969, p. 171).

In a broader analysis of neoliberalism’s consequences on housing, Mays (2021) conducted a critical-historical comparative policy analysis and an abridged critical discourse analysis, to uncover hegemonic discourses and institutional mechanisms that entrench poverty and housing inequality in Australia. Specifically, Mays (2021) found the rigid adherence to neoliberal policies by successive coalition governments since the 1970s has reconstituted the concept of housing into a market-oriented investment and financial asset for wealth generation. This policy has come at the expense of disadvantaged groups who are unable to access affordable housing due to the exponential growth of house price inflation, which has led to increased housing stress, spiralling debt, gentrification, and class divisions. In analysing the structural transformations of the post-war and neoliberal eras, Mays (2021) provided an understanding of historical tendencies, and the structural inequities, that define contemporary Australian housing insecurity.

Mays’ (2021) arguments regarding the institutional mechanisms and structural inequalities brought on by neoliberal policies bear resemblance to Galtung’s (1969) structural violence framework, specifically the analysis of a structure, “which increases the distance between the potential and the actual, and (…) impedes the decrease of this distance” (1969, p. 168). Additionally, Mays (2021) explored these themes by championing a universal basic income and strengthened social state as strategies for moving towards egalitarianism, approaches that minimise structural violence by enhancing an individual’s ability to reach their full potential. Above all, Mays (2021) showed how a sociological perspective can provide a thorough analysis of the underlying mechanisms of social inequality. Furthering Mays’ (2021) analysis, Galtung’s theory could be used to reframe the identified issues as also stemming from structural violence, alongside changes in policy.

Articles Examining Cost-of-living and Mental Health

Bentley et al. (2019) described who is most likely to experience household employment insecurity and housing affordability stress (termed ‘double precarity’) and estimates the degree to which housing affordability mediates the effect of employment insecurity on mental health. Using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, Bentley et al. (2019) found a causal relationship between insecure employment and mental health; approximately one fifth of mental health is mediated by changing housing costs and affordability stress. Populations most susceptible to housing and employment insecurity were those relying on one income, such as people who live alone or are recently separated (Bentley et al., 2019). While this study utilised a large and robust representative dataset of the Australian population, its focus on household employment becoming insecure limits its scope; it does not reflect the effects of employment insecurity among people experiencing chronic long-term employment problems (Bentley et al., 2019).

In a similar article, Bentley et al. (2022) analysed the variation in psycho-social effects caused by housing affordability stress within and between generations. This was achieved by following 14,000 Australians in the national Household, Income and Labour Dynamics survey for sixteen years as they entered and exited unaffordable housing and modelling when cohorts seem most vulnerable to mental health effects. Bentley et al. (2022) found that while people born in the 1980s have a high likelihood of falling below the affordability threshold, older people have a lower likelihood of recovering, creating a ‘pinch point’ for this older generation with negative mental health consequences. Bentley et al. (2022) concluded that housing affordability stress is an indicator of precarity, with the associated mental health effects varying “both within cohorts and between generations as a product of their shared experiences of housing” (p. 1842).

The observed correlation between housing insecurity and mental health demonstrated in these two articles could be further explained by applying Galtung’s (1969) typology of violence, in which the correlation between housing precarity and negative mental health outcomes can be interpreted as encompassing the dimensions of structural, psychological, and unintended violence. According to such an analysis, even though there may be no obvious subject-action-object relation, the difference between potential and actual mental health outcomes observed by variation among cohorts and generations displays aspects of a typology of violence (Galtung, 1969).

More recently, Raynor et al. (2022) investigated the impact of exposure to COVID-19 shocks (job loss, living cost pressures, and changing housing conditions) and double precarity (housing and employment) on mental health outcomes for members of share households. The method used was a two-wave survey of occupants in share housing during a prolonged lockdown period by the Victorian Government. The authors concluded residents of group households with pre-existing precarity were especially vulnerable to the negative mental health effects of lockdown, though access to sufficient government payments and adequate housing buffered these effects (Raynor et al., 2022). This article is significant because of its finding that much of the precarity-mental health association is mediated by inadequate housing, as well as its inclusion of economically vulnerable cohorts that are “often under-represented in national surveys” (Raynor et al., 2022, p. 7).

Furthering insights about these issues in relation to the pandemic, Bower et al. (2023) explored the mechanisms through which housing moderates COVID-19’s impact on mental health by analysing 2,065 Australians surveyed in mid-to-late 2020. Hierarchical linear regressions were used to examine associations between housing circumstances, neighbourhood belonging, and mental-health outcomes, whilst open-ended responses were analysed using thematic analysis and critical-realist epistemology. Bower et al. (2023) found participants’ housing context strongly impacted their emotional experiences, with insecure tenure and poverty leading to themes of feeling ‘trapped’ and ‘helpless’, whilst inadequate space and noise negatively impacted participants’ well-being. The researchers conclude, “to improve mental health among the vulnerably-housed, future housing policy should not compromise on housing affordability, quality, space and access to nearby amenities” (Bower et al., 2023, p. 260).

While Raynor et al. (2022) and Bower et al. (2023) demonstrated the pandemic worsened mental health outcomes for the economically disadvantaged, a sociological framework that provides theoretical explanations for why and how this is the case could enable a more robust analysis of the issue. For example, applying Galtung’s (1969) typology of violence opens a debate as to whether the negative mental health outcomes associated with insecure tenure and poverty constitute structural psychological violence; specifically, there is no direct, personal harm, yet the structure works to “decrease mental potentialities” (p. 169).

These same criticisms could be levied at Tseris et al. (2023), who reported on findings from three focus groups with in-patient mental health social workers in Sydney. Using a semi-structured interview schedule to guide discussions with focus groups, three major themes were identified in the thematic analysis: stuck in a crisis, reliance on substandard housing conditions, and pressures to discharge (2023). These findings demonstrate the immense challenges facing Sydney’s mental health social workers in accessing adequate, stable, and affordable accommodation for clients experiencing homelessness. Thus, the article outlines a facet of Australia’s cost-of-living crisis in the specific context of Sydney and explores the consequences to particularly vulnerable demographics. As is the case with Raynor et al. (2022) and Bower et al. (2023), a sociological framework could help explain the underlying systemic inequalities that underpinned the thematic analysis. For instance, the themes of being stuck and reliant on substandard housing conditions relate to the “unequal power and consequently (…) unequal life chances” inherent to structural violence (Galtung, 1969, p. 171).

Articles Examining Cost-of-living and Accommodation

With the goal of creating a comprehensive comparison of the housing circumstances of people with and without disabilities, and differences by impairment type, Aitken (2019) analysed data from a nationally representative sample of 11,394 working-aged Australians collected in 2011. Aitken (2019) found people with disabilities experienced disadvantages across all housing indicators, and people with intellectual and psychological disabilities fared worst. Such findings suggest a housing crisis for Australians with disabilities, alongside a need to develop “long-term housing solutions that promote independence, are accessible and affordable, and that consider location and neighborhood context” (Aitken, 2019, p. 121). A strength of this study lies in it being based on a large, nationally representative sample, while a limitation is its use of data from a single point in time, as well as partial examination of housing characteristics, such as experience of homelessness and suitability. Implementation of Galtung’s structural violence theory could provide an explanation for the underlying mechanisms that exclude people with disabilities from accessible and affordable housing. In this case, the disparity of housing security between people with and without disabilities displays how structural violence may be “aggravated further if the persons low on income are also (…) low on power” (Galtung, 1969, p. 171). Identification and correlation of these “rank dimensions” in who has access to housing could lend greater depth to the issue.

Next, Mallinson (2019) provides qualitative research about Australia’s housing crisis by reporting on participant experiences of living in caravans. Semi-structured interviews of park residents and operators were used to explore the social consequences of inequitable and unstable housing circumstances in caravan parks in rural Queensland. Mallinson (2019) found caravan parks play a crucial role in the provision of permanent housing for individuals faced with limited options, due to their communal design, availability, and relatively low price. Nevertheless, Mallinson (2019) concluded that such environments evidenced inequitable, unstable housing conditions. This article demonstrates the consequences of the housing crisis on lower income earners, and the agency of this demographic to acquire affordable housing, even if the conditions are sub-optimal. Sociological theory can re-interpret the implications of these findings as structural violence, by reframing the ‘option’ of sub-optimal housing for the research population as a consequence of social injustice, regardless of whether there is a clear subject-action-object relation. In this example, sociological theory provides a new conception and analysis of factors contributing to sub-optimal living conditions (Galtung, 1969).

Adding to the body of qualitative research on non-conventional accommodation, Nasreen and Ruming (2021) addressed a gap in the literature about informal shared housing by investigating Sydney tenants’ motivations for living in such accommodation and the challenges they face. Utilising a mixed methods approach, including an online survey and in-depth interviews with residents, the study found shared room housing offers flexibility and rental affordability for tenants marginalised from the private rental market. However, the trend raised issues such as tenure insecurity, exploitation, health and safety risks, and a lack of access to formal dispute resolution services. Nasreen and Ruming (2021) concluded that shared housing is “a survival strategy of marginalized tenants, a profitable opportunity for landlords, and a practice of negotiation between landlords and tenants to arrange tenancies while bypassing formal requirements,” and stated that there is a need to introduce diverse housing models with adequate eligibility criteria (Nasreen & Ruming, 2021, p. 243). Once again, this analysis of marginalised tenants and their precarity and/or exploitation in the housing market could benefit from a structural violence framework. The unequal power dynamics between tenants and landlords displays how “the power to decide over the distribution of resources is unevenly distributed (…) aggravated further if the persons low on income are also low in education, low on health, and low on power” (Galtung, 1969, p. 171).

Responding to sustainability challenges with Australian housing, Pablo and London (2022) provide a qualitative research example using sociological theory to argue that, alongside government-led interventions influencing supply and demand, there is a need for multi-stakeholder collaboration in resilient networks to create solutions. Pablo and London (2022) identify key elements of resilient, collaborative actor–networks in pop-up shelters/dwellings established in vacant structures. This is achieved by applying actor–network theory concepts in a case study involving one of Australia’s first pop-up shelters, with findings from semi-structured interviews suggesting that “resilient networks exhibit distributed leadership, the ability to selectively interrogate entrenched routines, and the ability to mobilize differentiated levels of convergence” (Pablo & London, 2022, p. 1271). Pablo and London (2022) make a theoretical contribution by developing a definition of resilient collaborative actor–networks, as well as provide a set of concrete strategies for future actors seeking to implement nimble, responsive housing solutions. If the Australian housing crisis can be understood as exhibiting structural violence, a premise put forth throughout our paper because housing deprivation limits physical and mental health, then resilient collaborative actor-networks, and the strategies they implement, could be seen as mitigating such violence by raising levels of realisation (Galtung, 1969).

Lastly, in an analysis of cost-of-living’s effects on Indigenous Australians’ struggle with housing, Prout Quicke and Green (2017) examined the experiences of First Nations People as a particular set of ‘right bearers’ within the right-to-the-city discourse. Australian Indigenous people have disproportionately high rates of dependence on volatile and discriminatory forms of tenure compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts (Prout Quicke & Green, 2017). Drawing from data derived from focus groups and semi-structured interviews, collected as part of a community-based research project in the Western Australian city of Geraldton, the article compared the State’s aspirations to move Indigenous people along an urban housing continuum alongside the experiences of Indigenous urban residents and their barriers to such movements. Prout Quicke and Green (2017) put forward two arguments. Firstly, that Indigenous people face a unique precarity in the Australian urban housing system as a result of colonial/racially discriminatory forces and economically discriminating processes (capital concentration and the commodification of land). Secondly, that precarity sets many Indigenous people on housing career trajectories that are antithetical to policy intentions (Prout Quicke and Green, 2017). In positioning urban Indigenous housing within the right-to-the-city framework, the authors described the experiences of Australian Indigenous peoples as a distinct group of “right-bearers” in their struggles to secure affordable housing tenure (Prout Quicke & Green, 2017, p. 176). If we apply a structural violence framework to these findings, the discriminatory forces and processes of the Australian urban housing system demonstrate violence that is structural in nature in its absence of a subject-action-object relation (Galtung, 1969). Further, there is a clear rank dimension to the housing system in the disparity of treatment between Indigenous people and their non-Indigenous counterparts.

Articles Examining Cost-of-living for Families

Ma (2021) analysed the content of a single mother Facebook group to describe a variety of housing insecurity issues experienced by single mother families in Australia. These included “unaffordable housing, struggles in the private rental market, high mobility, and homelessness” (Ma, 2021, p. 998). Utilising a “multidimensional framework that originated from systems theory” Ma (2021) finds that risk and protective factors are dynamic, interactive, and synergistic (p. 1014). These interconnected factors ultimately informed and mediated single mothers’ housing insecurity experiences. For example, single mothers’ low income often resulted from health conditions and caring responsibilities, putting them at a disadvantage in the private rental market. In a structural violence framework, these risk factors (low/sole income and responsibilities) constitute the “rank dimensions” that aggravate inequality, with their interactive element displaying how such dimensions are tied together within social structure (Galtung, 1969, p. 171). Likewise, Ma (2021) concludes that while psychosocial and group-based interventions can help these families manage stress and improve their adaptation, structural problems must be addressed to support single mothers and their children.

In a similar study on family housing insecurity, Parry et al. (2022) explored the understanding of community to families living in insecure housing in South Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Five female-headed families referred by an agency caring for families experiencing homelessness/housing insecurity were interviewed. ‘Community’ was defined using Bourdieu’s concept of social capital. Two themes emerged that shed light on how community is understood during times of crisis. The first suggested that for families experiencing housing insecurity, particularly women escaping family violence, their links with community were primarily maintained by welfare and church agencies that provided bridging social capital during the pandemic. The second theme pointed to traditional notions of community as family and geographical space; here the findings are mixed, as resources provided by government and mediated through the welfare agency allowed these families to create a safe and comfortable space. However, for First Nations women, the lockdown meant that it was difficult to maintain community obligations, while children who appeared to identify community with attendance at school found the lockdown confusing because of the disruption to their normal social space (Parry et al., 2022).

While Parry et al.’s (2022) research successfully broadens the concept of community and demonstrates the important role of specialist NGO services during disaster, applying structural violence theory to the findings can enable new implications. Utilising Galtung’s (1969) example of social structure, where actors seeking goals are organised in systems through their interaction in which value is exchanged, a question arises as to the value-distribution of the social capital provided by the described NGOs, with a distinction to be made between egalitarian and in-egalitarian distributions.

Articles Examining Food Insecurity

Lindberg et al. (2023) examined the lived experience of food insecurity for welfare-dependent households within a structural violence framework. Such a framework seeks to understand the distal causal factors that explain poor health patterns and inequities. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with customers of food pantries, soup kitchens, and community development programs in the state of Victoria were conducted. Thematic analysis established evidence of controlling, demeaning, and depriving practices in the interactions between the participants and the services/staff at national welfare providers and food charities (Lindberg et al., 2023). A relevant point in this article is its explanation of how the cost-of-living crisis has pushed what are generally considered ‘temporary’ welfare payments to become more permanent. “As Australia’s welfare payments have failed to keep pace with costs of living, the charity sector has expanded” (Lindberg et al., 2023, p. 187). Lindberg et al. (2023) contribute significantly to the research on the growing ‘food aid sector,’ demonstrating how major actors within the social sector participate in the process of structural violence that perpetuates poor health outcomes.

Temple et al. (2019) used data from the 2016 Household Expenditure Survey to report on variations in food insecurity prevalence across a range of social assistance payment types. Results displayed a “high prevalence of food insecurity among those receiving Australian Government social assistance payments, including the Newstart Allowance, Disability Support Pension, the Carer payment, and Parenting payment” (Temple et al., 2019, pp. 8–9). Additionally, food-insecure households in receipt of social assistance payments endured significant financial stress, with a large proportion simultaneously experiencing fuel or energy poverty. Results from Temple et al. (2019) show support for a comprehensive review of the Australian social security system.

Articles Examining Relevant Policy on Housing Insecurity

While the ‘cost-of-living crisis’ covers a multitude of issues, housing has been by far the most publicised, in both Australian media and academia on the topic. Hence, the majority of articles sampled discussed this issue. In an evaluation of housing affordability in Australia, Cho et al. (2021) provide an overview of trends in the housing market alongside a discussion of rising house prices and falling home ownership. Cho et al. (2021) discussed various policies that have been used to improve housing in the country. These include the First Home Owners Grant (FHOG), which provides a payment to first home buyers that satisfy a set of restrictions; the First Home Super Saver Scheme, which allows households to save up for a deposit using contributions into a superannuation fund; and the Home Builder policy (implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic), which allowed households meeting funding criteria to receive a grant of $15,000 or $25,000 to build or substantially renovate an existing home (Cho et al., 2021). This article framed the cost-of-living issue mostly through the lens of political economy; a more sociological approach could help explain the underlying social structures and intricacies missing from market trends and economic policy. For example, using Galtung’s (1969) framework could help interpret falling home ownership as a social issue stemming from entrenched structural violence, rather than simply a market trend.

In a more systemic analysis, Gurran et al. (2022) investigated whether ‘informal’ housing offers more affordable choices for low-income renters in expensive cities, with specific reference to Sydney, where planning reforms have deregulated housing development in response to housing affordability pressures. Drawing data from Sydney real estate advertisements and interviews with local government informants, Gurran et al. (2022) found that while the NSW State Government’s neoliberal policies of deregulating local residential controls and privatisation agenda produced significant growth in new housing production, Sydney’s shortage of low cost rental accommodation only increased. Furthermore, available accommodation failed basic standards of safety and amenity. Gurran et al. (2022) concluded that demand for informal housing in the global north can be understood as “a product of state failures to meet the needs of lower income groups within a wider context of housing financialization and the restructuring of the welfare state under Neo-Liberalism” (p. 29). As is the case with Cho et al. (2021), applying a more sociological approach could shed light on the nuances between neoliberal policy outcomes and informal housing, rather than simply the affordability and standards of such accommodation. For example, from a structural violence perspective, Australia’s adoption of two neoliberal principles, deregulation and privatisation, to inform policy creation could be seen as promoting latent violence, in which the ‘situation’ (in this context the Sydney housing market) is so unstable, the realisation level for actors (in this case tenants) ‘easily’ decreases (Galtung, 1969). The language of ‘violence’ in this explanation presents the State’s role in the issue (in this case, implementing policies that failed to meet the needs of lower income groups) as markedly different to the framing of ‘failure’; the latter statement diagnoses an issue within the structure, whereas the former calls into question the purpose of that same structure.

Next, Hohmann (2020) argues that engaging the content of the right to housing under Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) can contribute to an important shift in the discourse surrounding housing affordability issues in Australia. This article examined three facets of housing affordability: affordability for the disadvantaged; housing as wealth/savings; and housing financialisation for speculation and investment. As Hohmann (2020) advances, this approach could hold governments’ actions up to international standards and guide creative policy proposals. “Arguing that decent housing is a right, rather than only a market good, could help open up housing policy for bold new solutions that focus on those who are unable to access adequate, safe and secure housing” (Hohmann, 2020, p. 303). Whilst compelling, adding a sociological dimension to Hohmann’s (2020) argument could give it more a systemic element and, thus, improve its persuasiveness. For example, conceptualising housing as a ‘right’ would help minimise structural violence, if violence, in this case, is defined as humans being influenced so that “their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations” (Galtung, 1969, p. 168). Reframing this issue and its socio-economic consequences would further policy creation to avoid violence against disadvantaged groups unable to access adequate, safe and secure housing.

In a similar vain to Hohmann’s (2020) discussion of financialisation, Thorpe (2021) examined law as a site of gentrification, with focus given to regulatory frameworks for the development of boarding houses in Sydney that are contained within the State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Rental Housing) 2009 (ARH SEPP). Thorpe (2021) explained that, following Australia’s housing crisis, the ARH SEPP introduced provisions to incentivise construction and protection of boarding houses. While intended for low-income accommodation, these provisions have enabled gentrification through the displacement of low-income residents to more affluent housing aimed at students and professionals, well beyond the affordability of vulnerable populations. Through these events, ARH SEPP regulations were themselves gentrified, just as Sydney came to be gentrified by the middle class. Concluding that market-based solutions, such as ARH SEPP, were inadequate for solving a crisis created by decades of disinvestment in social housing, Thorpe (2021) successfully applied the theory of regulatory gentrification to the context of Australian housing and the displacement of low income residents. Further, it clearly evidences such displacement originated from state policy. Examining law as a site of structural violence, as was the case by Gurran et al. (2022), such a sociological framework could deepen understanding that gentrification causes, thereby expanding conclusions beyond regulatory policy gone wrong.