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in Australia as in the United States, where the practice of short-term live-in relationships
with boyfriends or "sugar daddies" may account for the gross under-representation of
girls in official counts (King 1991).
The Australian Institute of Family Studies research on youth applying for the Young
Homeless Allowance found a number of recurring themes often associated with "extreme
domestic disharmony" (Cass 1991, 48):
(1) The re-partnering of parents precipitating conflict;
(2) Strong cultural and value differences between generations affecting young persons
from different ethnic backgrounds wishing to adopt the values and practices of their
Anglo-Australian peers;
(3) Violence and sexual abuse affecting young women in particular;
(4) Unemployment by parents or by youth; or lack of employment for rural or outer
suburban youth who then seek jobs in the city, and inadvertently become homeless in the
urban centre as limited work, inadequate support and life skills lead to youth joblessness;
and
(5) Young women, especially, are more likely to be unemployed and remain so for longer
periods, less likely to be in education and training, more likely to be found in marginal
part-time or casual work, and more prone to seek employment in a narrow range of
occupations.
This contributes to systematic neglect of the exploitation and misery that young people
experience, as well as their increased likelihood of entering criminal careers. The World
Health Organization's (WHO) report on street youth in ten cities wholly rejects the short-
term thesis (1993). Instead, the WHO argues not only that the street lifestyle exposes
street children and adolescents to multiple forms of victimization, but that street survival
entailing drug addiction, dependency on prostitution, or other street crimes may
jeopardize the youth's return to mainstream society.
In many instances, street activities simply kill the youth outright (e.g., drug overdoses,
murder, suicide). In addition to the street lifestyle that precludes movement back to home
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