Generational wars are always reduced to this issue, and it turns out that the Boomers may be right.
In the battle between different generations in Australia, comments from both sides of the debate sometimes fall into hyperbole and painfully used clichés.
For those involved in the intergenerational conflict, many would have heard all about how toasted avocado is the real culprit in the lack of affordable housing and how boomers bought their homes for the same price as a packet of potatoes. fried and a bar of Mars. it costs today.
Like most hotly contested social battles, there is truth within hyperbole on both sides of the debate, with exactly how much truth there is based on the eye of the beholder.
But what do the data on spending on food say today compared to 40 years ago?
This is what we will explore in this article: how spending patterns have changed, the impact of this on the economy, and how the composition of the economy has changed over the last four decades.
Back in the 80’s
Over the last 40 years, the composition of the Australian economy has changed dramatically.
Where there used to be factories across the country that produced everything from cars to fishing reels, there are now gyms with personal trainers and bartender coffee in just about every suburb in the city.
When you look at the data, it really looks.
When comparable records were set in 1983, spending on takeaway food, restaurants and cafes reached 0.68 per cent of GDP. Halfway through our data set in 2002, this figure had more than doubled to 1.4 percent of GDP.
Finally, in an affected confinement in 2021-2022, it had more than tripled its original size as a proportion of the global economy, to 2.33 percent of GDP.
While this point is aimed at older Australians according to the data, it is a measure of the whole economy and not just indicates the spending habits of younger Australians.
The economy has changed
In 1990, value-added manufacturing accounted for about $ 1 of every $ 7 generated by the country’s economy in terms of GDP (13.8%).
At that time, Australia was not what would be considered a manufacturing power that could be compared to Japan or Germany, but it could certainly sustain itself and produce all kinds of goods for domestic consumption.
This level of self-sufficiency and manufacturing output is now a distant memory.
According to the latest comparable World Bank data, manufacturing now accounts for only 5.65 percent of GDP or about $ 1 of every $ 18 generated by the country’s economy.
Where before Australia could be considered at least within the same stage as the United States or Britain, some of our immediate rivals in terms of manufacturing as a percentage of GDP are now nations like Botswana and Eritrea.
Naturally, this has drastically changed the composition of the economy, where before manufacturing was a power of economic growth, it has been supplanted by mineral exports in terms of GDP and the services sector for jobs.
Cliché and economics
As the data shows, Australians spend a larger proportion of the country’s income on things like eating out. In this, older Australians are right: there are some homes that could be more prudent and live a little more frugally.
However, there is a “yes and a but” to follow this particular statement and it is a big one.
In recent decades, especially since the onset of the pandemic, the economy has become increasingly dependent on consumer spending to drive growth and create jobs.
This may be characterized by some as buying money at random and spending too much on eating out, but for better or worse, this is the economy that has been created and has generated the lowest unemployment in decades.
No doubt it could be argued that excessive consumerism is bad for the planet, but as we have learned in the last two years, these things cannot be turned on or off without consequences, even if we wanted to.
Older Australians may be right to re-examine our lives in order to devote our money to what really matters to us, but at the same time we need to be wary of the consequences if we collectively follow their advice. .
Tarric Brooker is a freelance journalist and social commentator @AvidCommentator