It has been argued that the global city-social polarisation thesis put forward by scholars looking at North American cities cannot be easily transferred to global cities in other parts of the world. Recent research has illustrated that whilst there may be some change in levels of social polarisation in global cities outside the US, the form, structure and causes of social polarisation are different. This paper extends the debate by looking at Sydney, Australia. It is argued that whilst changes in occupational structure and income polarisation are partially explained by economic restructuring associated with globalisation, global processes alone cannot fully explain these changes. The paper points to the significance of the inclusion of factors such as the unemployed, the gendered structure of occupations and migration.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adrian, C. (1984) Urban impacts of foreign and local investment in Australia. Publication No. 119, AustralianInstitute of Urban Studies, Canberra.
2.
Atzema, O. and De Smidt, M. (1992) Selection and duality in the employment structure of the Randstad, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie , 83 (4), pp. 289-305.
3.
Australian Bureau Of Statistics (1991a) ASCO-Australian Standard Classification of Occupations. Cat No. 1221.0.
4.
Australian Bureau Of Statistics (1991b) Employee Earnings and Hours, Preliminary. Cat No. 6305.0.
5.
Australian Bureau Of Statistics (1992) The Labour Force, Australia, August 1992. Cat. No. 6203.0.
6.
Australian Bureau Of Statistics (1996) Labour Force. NSW & ACT, Cat. No. 6201.1.
7.
Bell, D. (1973) The Coming ofPost Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books .
8.
Bluestone, B. and Harrison, B. (1982) The Deindustrialisation of America. New York: Basic Books.
9.
Bruegel, I. (1996) Gendering the polarisation debate: a comment on Hamnett's social polarisation, economic restructuring and welfare state regimes, UrbanStudies, 33, pp. 1431-1439.
10.
Burgess, J. (1996) No polarisation in Dutch cities ? Inequality in a coporatist country, Urban Studies, 33, pp. 99-105.
11.
Castells, M. (1989) The Informational City. Oxford : Blackwell.
12.
Castles, S., Iredale, R. and Vasle, E. (1994) Australian immigration between globalisation and recession: a report on proceedings of the immigration outlook conference held November 11-13, Sydney, Australia, International Migration Review, Summer, 28(2), pp. 370-383.
13.
Esping-Anderson, G. (1990 ) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
14.
Esping-Anderson, G. (Ed.) (1993) Changing Classes: Stratification and Mobility in Post-industrial Societies . London: Sage.
15.
Fainstein, S. and Harloe, M. (1995) Introduction, in: S. Fainstein, I. Gordon and M. Harloe (Eds) Divided Cities: New York and London in the Contemporary World, pp 1-28. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
16.
Feagin, J. and Smith, M. (1987) Cities and the new international division of labour: an overview, in: M. Smith and J. Feagin (Eds) The Capitalist City: Global Restructuring and Community Politics, pp. 3-34. Oxford: Blackwell.
17.
Featherman, D. and Hauser, R. (1976) Sexual inequalities and socio-economic achievement in the US, 1962-73, American Sociological Review, 41, pp. 462-483.
18.
Foster, W. (1996) Immigration and the Australian Economy, 2nd edn. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.
19.
Friedmann, J. (1986) The world city hypothesis, Development and Change, 17, pp. 69-84.
20.
Friedmann, J. and Woff, G. (1982) World city formation, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 6, pp. 306-344.
21.
Glass, R. (1973). The mood in London, in: D. DoNNisoN and D. EvERsLEY (Eds)London: Urban Patterns, Problems and Policies, pp. 405-432. London: Heinemann .
22.
Gregory, B. (1993) Aspects of Australian and US living standards: the disappointing decades 1970-1990, Economic Record, 69, 204, pp. 61-76.
23.
Hall, P. (1995) Towards a general urban theory, in: J. Brotchie, M. Batty , E. Blakely ET Al. (Eds) Cities in Competition: Productive and Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century , pp. 3-35. Melbourne : Longman Australia.
24.
Hamnett, C. (1994) Social polarisation in global cities: theory and evidence, UrbanStudies, 31, pp.401-424.
25.
Hamnett, C. (1996) Social polarisation, economic restructuring and welfare state regimes, UrbanStudies, 33, pp. 1407-1430.
26.
Henry, M. and Franzway, S. (1993) Gender, unions and the new workplace: realising the promise? In: B. Probert and W. Wilson (Eds) Pink Collar Blues: Work, Gender and Technology, pp. 126-153. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
27.
Jamrozik, A., Boland, C. and Urquhart, R. (1995) Social Change and Cultural Transformation in Australia . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28.
KNOx, P. and Taylor, P. (Eds) (1995) World Cities in a World System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
29.
Lepani, B. (1994) The economic role of cities: Australia in the global economy, UrbanFutures, September, pp. 14-22.
30.
Lepani, B., Freed, G., Murphy, P. and Mcgillivray, A. (1995) The Economic Role of Cities: Australia in the Global Economy. Commonwealth Department of Housing and Regional Development, AGPS, Canberra.
31.
Lippman Abu-Lughod, J. (1995) Comparing Chicago, New York and Los Angeles: testing some world city hypotheses, in: P. KNOx and P. Taylor (Eds) (1995) World Cities in a World System, pp. 171-191. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
32.
Logan, J., Taylor-G, R. and Reuter, M. (1995) Poverty and income inequality, in: S. Fainstein, I. Gordon, and M. Harloe (Eds) Divided Cities: New York and London in the Contemporary World, pp. 129-150. Cambridge : Blackwell Publishers.
33.
Loveman, G.W. and Tilly, C. (1988a) Good jobs or bad jobs: what does the evidence say?, New England Economic Review, January/February, pp. 46-65.
34.
Loveman, G.W. and Tilly, C. (1988b) Good jobs or bad jobs: evaluating the American job creation experience, International Labour Review, 127, pp. 593-611.
35.
Marcuse, P. (1989) Dual city: a muddy metaphor for a quartered city , International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 13, pp. 697-708.
36.
Marcuse, P. (1996) Is Australia different? Globalisation and the new urban poverty. Occasional Paper No. 3, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Melbourne.
37.
McMichael, P. (1996) Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective . California: Pine Forge Press .
38.
Mingione, E. (1991) Fragmented Societies: A Sociology of Economic Life Beyond the Market Paradigm . Oxford: Basil Blackwell .
39.
Mollenkopf, J. and Castells, M. (Eds) (1991) Dual City: RestructuringNew York. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
40.
Murphy, P. (1995) Immigrant arrivals in Australia: Sydney and other cities, UrbanFutures, No. 18, pp. 42-46.
41.
Murphy, P. and Watson, S. (1994) Social polarisation and Australian cities, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 18, pp. 573-590
42.
Nelson, J. and Lorence, J. (1988) Metropolitan earnings inequality and service sector employment, Social Forces, 67, pp. 492-511.
43.
Newton, P. (1995) Changing places? Households, firms and urban hierarchies in the information age, in: J. Brotchie, M. Batty, E. Blakely ET Al. (Eds) Cities in Competition: Productive and Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century, pp. 161-190. Melbourne : Longman Australia.
44.
O'Connor, K. and Stimson, R. (1995) The economic role of cities: economic change and city development, Australia, 1971-1991. Commonwealth Department of Housing and Regional Development, Urban Futures Research Programme, AGPS , Canberra.
45.
O'Malley, P. (1978) Australian immigration policies and the dirty worker syndrome, in: B. Birrell and C. Hay (Eds) The Immigration Issue in Australia: A Sociological Symposium, pp. 47-59. Melbourne: Globe Press.
46.
Pahl, R. (1988) Some remarks on informal work, social polarisation and the social structure, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 12, pp. 247-267.
47.
Pinch, S. (1993) Social polarisation: a comparison of evidence from Britain and the United States, Environment and Planning A , 25, pp. 779-795.
48.
Probert, B. and Wilson, B. (1993) (Eds) Pink Collar Blues: Work Gender and Technology. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
49.
Sassen, S. (1991) The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
50.
Sassen, S. (1995) Urban impacts of economic globalism, in: J. Brotchie, M. Batty , E. Blakely ET Al. (Eds) Cities in Competition: Productive and Sustainable Cities for the 21st Century , pp. 36-57. Melbourne : Longman Australia.
51.
Sassen-Koob, S. (1984) The new labour demand in global cities, in: M. Smith (Ed.) Cities in Transition , pp. 139-171. Beverley Hills: Sage.
52.
Saunders, P. (1992) Poverty, inequality and recession, Economic Papers, 11, pp. 1-22.
53.
Smith, D. (1993) Slave trade: the new servant class, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March, p. 10.
54.
Soja, E. and Scott, A. (1986) Los Angeles, capital of the late twentieth century , Society and Space, 4, pp. 249-254.
55.
Soja, E., Morales, R. and Wolff, G. (1983) Urban restructuring: an analysis of social and spatial change in Los Angeles, Economic Geography, 59, pp. 195-230.
56.
Stanback, T. and Noyelle, T. (1982) Cities in Transition: Changing Job Structures in Atlanta, Denver, Buffalo, Phoenix, Columbus (Ohio), Nashville, Charlotte. Osmun, NJ: Allanheld.
57.
Stilwell, F. (1996) Globalisation: reshaping Australian cities?Paper presented at New Urban Forms, New Housing Forms Conference , University of Queensland, Brisbane , 2-5 July.
58.
Suter, L. and Miller, H. (1973) Income differences between men and career women , American Journal of Sociology, 78, pp. 962-974.
59.
Thurow, L.C. (1984) It's just not demographics: the disappearance of the middle class, New York Times, 133, 5 February.
60.
Treiman, D. and Roos, P. (1983) Sex and earnings in industrial society, American Journal of Sociology, 89, pp. 621-656.
61.
Van Kempen, E. (1994) The dual city and the poor: social polarisation, social segregation and life chances, UrbanStudies, 31, pp. 995-1015.
62.
Wright, E.O. and Martin, B. (1987) The transformation of the American class structure, 1960-1980, American Journal of Sociology, 93, pp. 1-29.
