Sydney, Australia: A Global City? Testing the Social Polarisation Thesis

Abstract

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.