On Life’s Lottery
On sale
29th July 2021
Price: £7.99
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Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780733646515
Birth is a throw of the dice. The consequences last a lifetime.
We like to think of Australia as the land of the ‘fair go’, a land of choice and equal opportunity. But behind the facade of meritocracy lies an uncomfortable truth: much of your life is already decided by the lottery of where you are born and who you are born to. Entrenched inter-generational poverty, like the property of the wealthy, can be handed down from parent to child.
With one in eight adults and one in six children living below the poverty line in Australia, Glyn Davis asks the question: If life is a game of chance, what responsibility do those who are given a head start have to look after those less fortunate?
We like to think of Australia as the land of the ‘fair go’, a land of choice and equal opportunity. But behind the facade of meritocracy lies an uncomfortable truth: much of your life is already decided by the lottery of where you are born and who you are born to. Entrenched inter-generational poverty, like the property of the wealthy, can be handed down from parent to child.
With one in eight adults and one in six children living below the poverty line in Australia, Glyn Davis asks the question: If life is a game of chance, what responsibility do those who are given a head start have to look after those less fortunate?
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Reviews
A thought-provoking read on how birth is a roll of the dice, with your chances in life decided by where you are born and who are you born to.
The question at the heart of Davis's essay is what to do about this situation, or what it is possible to do in a country in thrall to low taxation and suspicious of the welfare state.
