Essay Example on Netherlands: Standard of Living, Literacy & Healthcare

Standard of Living: in the Netherlands, the adjusted average net disposable household income per capita is 29,333 dollars per year, which is lower than the average OECD of 33,604 dollars annually. Also, regarding employment, 76% of individuals between the age of 15 to 64 have jobs that are paying well.

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Literacy Levels: the literacy rate of people above the age of 15 is stable at 99%

Status of Health Care: in the Netherlands, Health insurance is mandatory. Additionally, the Netherlands healthcare is covered by two statutory insurance forms: the primary insurance (zorgverzekeringswet (zvw), which covers the common medical care and the long-term care and nursing which is covered by the wet landgurige Zorg (wlz) (Van Oort n.p)

Average annual income: in 2018, the median gross salary was 37,000 euros. A holiday bonus is included in the figure, and it corresponds to a monthly income of 2850 euros.

Status of women: the Netherlands is always committed to raising the financial self-sufficiency and economic independence of women. Equality between men and women is also among the guiding principles of development and foreign efforts, providing an economic prosperity and stability basis (Van Oort n.p)

Main exports: machinery such as computers (99.9 billion dollars), mineral fuels such as oil (97.2 billion dollars), electrical machinery equipment (94.3 billion dollars), pharmaceuticals (43.2 billion dollars), medical, technical, and optical apparatus (34.9 billion dollars), iron and steel (16.4 billion dollars), and vehicles (29.5 billion dollars (Van Oort n.p).

Economic/Social Conditions for Australia

Representatives: Scott Morrison and Michael McCormack

Population: 24.6 million

Capital City: Canberra

Area (in square km): 7.692 million square kilometers

Major Languages: English (Australian)

Life expectancy: 82.5 years

Monetary Unit: Australian dollar (AUD)

Dollar GNI Per Capita: 45,780 PPP Dollars

Standard of Living: 33,417 USD

Literacy Levels: 99%

Status of Health Care: Free Health Care

Average Annual Income: USD 57755

Status of women: in 2017, the global index that measures gender equality ranked Australia 35th, slipping from 15th in 2006 (Paris n.p).

Main Exports: Iron ore, coal, petrol gas, gold, synthetic corundum, wheat and meslin, bovine meat, wool, the meat of sheep or goat.

Government policies and statutes govern asylum in Australia as it seeks to implement the obligations of Australia under the convention regarding the status of refugees, where Australia is involved. Over the past decade, many refugees have sought asylum in Australia with the primary forces driving the movement being persecution, civil unrest, and war. Moreover, the annual quota of refugees can be said to be approximately 20,000 people (Paris, n.p).

Solutions for Australia's Refugee Crisis

Political Solutions/Economic Solutions

Urgently Resettle Refugees from Manus and Nauru Island

Many Australians are often urging the government to commit publicly to a timeline for refugees resettlement from the offshore processing centers. Australia should also take the entire responsibility to find a permanent and safe solution. In case it rejects bringing the refugees to Australia, it should ascertain that third countries like Netherlands can provide access to education and healthcare, protection against refoulment, freedom of movement such that the refugees will never be kept in detention for immigration, access to work rights, prospects for families which have been divided to reunite, and settlement services to assist with the social integration challenge (Crawford et al. 325). Therefore, every individual deserves an assessment on whether the Netherlands, which is among the third countries, is appropriate for the specific circumstances and vulnerabilities.

Legislate to Ascertain Prolonged and Mandatory Immigration Detention does not harm young Kids

There is always an international consensus which states that children put in immigration detention is often against their interest, and it is also a violation of the convention for the United Nations' rights of children. Moreover, the Australian government is always urged to introduce legislation which can entirely and permanently end children's detention immigration in the nation of any other settings which have been supported, facilitated and funded by the government of Australia (McBrien 144).

Reveal the Real Financial Costs of Refugee Policies for Australia

Many secrecy years have curbed the Australian public from establishing informed decisions on whether the harsh treatment of the government of asylum seeker is an effective or necessary use of tax dollars. The Australian government should, therefore, commit to providing transparent information on the actual fiscal amount for the policies of Australian refuges, beginning with the public's expenditure's full audit since 2013 (McBrien 153).

Cultural Solutions

Re-opening Resettlement Pathways of Refugees from Indonesia

In 2014, the Australian government announced that refugees who are seeking a settlement from Indonesia would no longer be accepted in case they arrived after 1st July of the same year. The action intended to deter asylum seekers from immigrating to Indonesia. However, instead of draining the pool of Indonesians, a backlog has been created by the policy where all the asylum seekers are stuck in limbo (McBrien 149). Therefore, Australia should coincide with the government of Indonesia as well as the UNHCR in calling the nation to revoke its ban on the refugee resettlement from Indonesia promptly.

Increasing the Humanitarian Intake of Australia

The government of Australia in conjunction with that of Netherlands is increasing the humanitarian intake gradually to 18,800 for over five years, but they have not yet made any commitment in continuing with or maintaining the level of growth beyond 2019 and 2020. Therefore, Australia should increase her efforts by scaling up the nation's and citizen's humanitarian intake of asylum seekers to a level that is befitting the population and the nation's prosperity. Given the extent to which the population has increased with and that the economy is three times larger, Australians propose that their country can feasibly accept more refugees between 2019 and 2020 while they are still granting additional placements responding to numerous unforeseen emergencies (Crawford et al. 325).

Assisting Refuges Access Non-Humanitarian Visas

The government of Australia can help the asylum seekers by investigating the barriers which might stop refugees from accessing the program of broader immigration. Citizens, as well as the government, can work with host and transit nations for the visa applications to be actively facilitated. The actions might include: vastly distributing the information about visa in relevant languages, opening the departmental outposts in the primary overseas locations, deferring or waiving some document requirements and visa fees, and developing a system that can refer qualified refugee candidates to the Australian employers who need foreign candidates (Crawford et al. 325).

Policy Statement

Poverty gets construed as the severe insufficient certain possessions which can greatly reduce the quality of the life of a person. The poverty in Australia often deals with the scenarios or relative poverty and its measurement. Relative poverty issue and its measurement are said to be contentious political concerns. For instance, the relative income poverty looks at the population's percentage, which earns less when compared to the average earnings. However, some people might argue that the relative measure used by the Australian government is a mistake as it hides absolute poverty existence by looking only at the people who earn little income. In 1990, the poverty line known as the dollar a day was introduced in Australia which measured the absolute poverty through the standards of the poorest nations in the world (Saunders, Melissa and Bruce 100). Moreover, the new international poverty line as defined by the World Bank in 2005, was approximately 1.25 dollars in a day which have been updated to 2.5 dollars a day currently. Abject poverty, extreme poverty or absolute poverty, therefore, gets construed as a condition characterized by intense and severe basic human needs deprivation, including safe drinking water, information, education, shelter, health, food, and sanitation facilities. The action not only depends on income but also access to services.

In 2016, the Australian (ACOSS) released a report which depicted that poverty was increasing in the nation, with an estimated three million people or 13.3% of the total population living below the accepted poverty line. The report also estimated approximately 731,000 children to be living in poverty and 17.5% of kids below the age of fifteen in poverty. Nevertheless, the government of Australia has always been trying to solve the challenge through the creation of more jobs, but there can be more means where economic equality can be achieved. Some of the government solutions include affordable housing, free health care, and education for everyone, and having a fair payment of taxes for every citizen (Saunders, Melissa and Bruce 110).

The United Nations and World Vision thus, addresses both the long-term and short-term causes of food insecurity and hunger in numerous nations worldwide, with Australia being among them. Also, UN and World Vision educate farmers on the ways of nurturing their land, increasing productivity and sustainability and preventing soil degradation. They also provide the farmers with new various types of seeds which are more nutritious and productive, as well as training in the advanced techniques of agriculture. Moreover, when there are assured food and children do not have to contribute in the provision of firewood to a household, water, and food, they can focus on providing an education which might help them and their future children out of poverty. The Australian Aid, as well as those of other assisting nations, makes up approximately 1% of the overall budget expenditure (Saunders, Melissa and Bruce 108). However, since 2014, Australia suffered a federal budget cut of about 25%, which was historically low. Nonetheless, the aid budget for Australia in solving poverty problem as at 2017, it was 3.8 billion dollars, which was less by a third in the actual terms the 5.1 billion dollars which were spent in 2013. The 5.1 billion dollars spent in 2013, thus, represented Australia's peak effort of aid in dollar terms. But according to the GNI aid ration, the amount was below the 1960s and 1970s levels.

Works Cited

Crawford, Emma, et al. "The structural-personal interaction: Occupational deprivation and asylum seekers in Australia." Journal of Occupational Science 23.3 (2016): 321-338.

McBrien, Jody L. "Refugees, asylum seekers and education for citizenship and social justice." The Palgrave international handbook of education for citizenship and social justice. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016. 143-161.

Paris, Chris. Housing Australia. Macmillan International Higher Education, 2017.

Saunders, Peter, Melissa Wong, and Bruce Bradbury. "Poverty in Australia since the financial crisis: the role of housing costs, income growth, and unemployment." Journal of Poverty and Social Justice 24.2 (2016): 97-112.

Van Oort, Frank G. Urban growth and innovation: Spatially bounded externalities in the Netherlan...