This report takes a broad review of inequality and its impact on society. It carries out an in-depth analysis to determine the role demographic factors, such as age, gender, disability, location, education and employment backgrounds play in determining inequality. It does this through decomposition of the Gini coefficient.

The paper then looks at outcome gaps across economics, health, housing, education, social outcomes and the environment. It finds very large gaps between the highest and lowest quintile of household incomes. It also points to policy solutions that would help address issues of inequality. It builds on the established work of the Australian Actuaries Intergenerational Equity Index, which looks at the gap between older and younger Australians across a range of indicators.

This paper uses unit record data from Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA).