This Melbourne Institute working paper explores the factors underlying intergenerational disadvantage in Australia. The study looks at the extent to which children are more likely to receive social welfare payments if their parents received welfare payments. The paper finds that young people are 1.8 times more likely to receive social assistance if their parents have a history of receiving social assistance themselves. The intergenerational correlation is particularly strong in the case of disability payments’; highlighting that childhood disadvantage stemming from parental disability is linked to a broad spectrum of adult disadvantage.
