Don Edgar
Dr Don Edgar, OAM, is a sociologist, an Ambassador for NARI (National Ageing Research Institute) and Foundation Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Don's recent articles
14 April 2025
There is no future without children
Imagine a world without children, a world steadily depopulating like that in the dystopian novel by P.D. James, Children of Men.
5 March 2025
Medicare skullduggery
Prime Minister Albanese has announced an $8.5 billion boost for Medicare to make bulk-billing available to all adults, not just concession card holders. Within hours, the Leader of the Opposition matched Labor’s bid. Both leaders are acutely aware that health care affordability is a critical issue for the electorate. In his commentary on P&I March 1 Ross Gittins states “Medicare has more problems than just out of pocket payments’.
3 September 2024
Ageing policy ignores the majority of older people
‘Old’ is defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as any person over the age of 65. This is a wildly outdated notion given our longer life expectancy and the fact that most of us will live many years beyond that arbitrary date in active service to the community.
18 August 2024
Birth rate down; attacks on marriage and family are counterproductive
Marriage as an institution has long been attacked as the bulwark of patriarchy, a formality, binding women into compulsory sexual obligations, economic dependence and unequal life chances and the seat of most domestic violence. It has been all that and more, but ‘family’ has been forgotten by many as the outcome of positive romantic attachment and mutual care ‘until death us do part’.
24 August 2023
A bonded approach to the education of skilled workers
Education Minister Jason Clares important review of education seems to have lost the plot. Secondary schoolers have been told for years that their aim should be university entrance. That approach has distorted the focus of secondary schooling toward achieving a high score in HSC while the technical side has been downgraded in both funding and status.
4 August 2023
Australian Universities Accord lost in a mire of confusion about equity
The Australian Universities Accord Interim Report shows an echidna on its cover, in keeping, Education Minister Jason Clare acknowledges, with the spikey issues he is attempting to address in the education system. His goal is to reduce inequality in Australian society while improving the quality of education across the system.
17 February 2023
Jim Chalmers value-added capitalism requires upheaval of old age paradigm
Treasury, along with all economic institutions, must replace their ageist definitions and assumptions about older people and become part of the solution, not the assault. Quelle surprise! We finally have a Treasurer who is an independent thinker, and more surprisingly he is thinking out loud. Jim Chalmers is rethinking capitalism to restore some basic values. But the frenzied reaction of economic journalists illustrates how hard it will be for Chalmers to shift the stubborn neo-liberal ideas of the economic establishment towards a new, values-based capitalism for Australia, within a new wellbeing framework where our private markets create public value....
3 December 2022
Family policy has fallen off the radar
In a single life span we have moved from a we society to an I society, as Robert Putnam puts it in his seminal study in the late nineties entitled Bowling Alone. The value of reciprocal responsibilities within our community has been upended by individualism and divisive tribalism. In this context the story of the family is revealing.
15 June 2022
Julian Schultz searches but does not find the soul of the nation
When a book called The Idea of Australia: A search for the nations soul is touted as A brilliant successor to Donald Hornes The Lucky Country, and as A triumph of art, politics, literature, history, and the deepest scholarship, one would expect a truly exciting read that clarifies or refocuses the idea of Australia.
2 November 2021
The age-old debate on generational conflict is deeply flawed
Every generation deserves the best chance in life, but achieving this has been undermined by government policy failure and misplaced claims of advantage.
23 October 2021
Housing policy is a failure for young and old
Blaming Baby Boomers for the housing crisis is a diversion. What we need is a complete rethink of our housing supply.
15 April 2021
Are we more depressed or more diagnosed?
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5), which finds widespread use in Australia and across the world, by physicians, researchers, courts, and schools, lists more than 300 criteria for depression, which makes the meaning of a diagnosis so vague it can potentially cover every one of us. So, are we more depressed or more diagnosed?
10 February 2021
Covid-19 has been a circuit breaker. Now we need to flip a different switch
A horror year, 2020 has brought some salutary lessons. But can we change our ways because of our trauma? Or will we: continue to ignore climate change; bring back overseas students and depend on their privileged place in universities; boost migration to support the housing price spiral; turn a blind eye to inequality and social injustice?
8 May 2019
DON EDGAR. Elections, the arts and regional development
In all the pre-election hubbub about taxes, national deficits, the environment and what else to spend our money on, there is scant attention being paid to the arts an area which nurtures the soul and takes us beyond everyday practicalities to the realm of vision, creativity and the meaning of life. This is a glaring gap in any attempt to revitalise regional Australia.
11 April 2019
DON EDGAR. Right-wing populism and family values
It is disturbing to find dogged anti-abortionist, anti-gay proselitisers such as MP Kevin Andrews and Endeavour Forums Babette Francis still representing Australias views at European far-right conferences.
26 November 2018
DON EDGAR. Looking for the cuckoo in the mental health nest.
As a researcher, I have always been suspicious of statistics touted as incontrovertible truths; and of propagandists for a cause who claim to be the holders of effective remedies for complex social problems. The current truths being touted (and winning huge increases in government funding) are that one in every five Australians has a mental disorder, that mental health problems are on the increase, costing the economy billions of dollars, and that a few chosen mental health experts have the solutions, if only their services were better funded.
26 October 2017
DON EDGAR AND PATRICIA EDGAR. University reforms needed for the longevity economy.
Tinkering at the edges of university financing and student loan repayments ignores the tsunami of social change that is the real challenge for Australias future higher education system. Nick Xenophon is right to call for a full-scale inquiry into higher education; it is a mess, not catering to Australias future needs.