Suchergebnisse

For most of the past decade, the Australian Government has developed its social policies within the framework of a consensual incomes policy. While this has led to a fall in the real average earnings of Australian workers, until 1990, the employed workforce grew at nearly the fastest rate of all OECD countries, and female labour force participation increased markedly. At the same time, there were constraints on public expenditure, under which eligibility for social security payments was restricted. This was accompanied by targeted increases in benefit levels for low income families with children, as part of an explicit programme to reduce child poverty. These and other policies have been characterised as indicating that the Australian Labor Party has followed economic rationalist policies, similar to those of Conservative governments in the UK and other English-speaking countries. Using a micro-analytic simulation model, this article provides estimates of trends in living standards, poverty and income inequality in Australia between 1983 and 1990, and assesses the extent to which Australia has had a 'New Right' government.

We are currently experiencing an important period of change in the social circumstances of sole parents. Equally significant developments are also taking place in the policy arrangements affecting the well being of sole parents and their children. This conference, sponsored by the Social Policy Research Centre as part of its program to promote public discussion of issues in social policy, was held at an important moment it this history. The same broad patterns of change have been emerging across a number of countries whose culture and social policy frameworks are similar to ours. Some at least are deeply rooted, most significantly changes in marriage, fertility and the roles men and women play in family and paid employment. Other common trends have their basis in the economy, including changing demands for skilled and unskilled, full- and part-time workers. In a number of countries also public expenditure is increasingly tightly constrained. Common consequences have been increased numbers of sole parents and high rates of poverty among them. The social policy responses of a variety of governments have also had common elements. These have been concerned to address the scale of public expenditure of sole parents, the adequacy of public income support levels, the role of noncustodial parents, and barriers to the workforce participation of sole parents. The Conference, Sole Parents and Public Policy, examined the policy framework for sole parents taking shape in present-day Australia. The papers published here featured discussion across the broad spectrum of issues and policy instruments.

This report contains papers presented to the National Social Policy Conference held at the University of New South Wales from 5-7 July 1989. The overall theme of the Conference was, 'Social Policy in Australia: What Future for the Welfare State?' The Conference was structured around the following five specific themes: i) The Ideology, Philosophy and Political Environment of Social Policy ii) The Economic Environment of Social Policy iii) Income Maintenance and Income Security iv) Community Resources and Services v) From Policy to Practice Six reports of the conference proceedings were published in the Social Policy Research Centre Reports and Proceedings series with the following numbers and titles: No. 79 Volume 1: Plenary Sessions edited by Peter Saunders and Adam Jamrozik. No. 80 Volume 2: Concurrent Sessions. Contributions form the Social Policy Research Centre. edited by Peter Saunders. No. 81 Volume 3: Concurrent Sessions. The Ideology, Philosophy and Political Environment of Social Policy, edited by Adam Jamrozik. No. 82 Volume 4: Concurrent Sessions. Social Policies in Australia and New Zealand, edited by Russell Ross. No. 83 Volume 5: Concurrent Sessions. Income Maintenance and Income Security, edited by Peter Whiteford. No. 84 Volume 6: Concurrent Sessions. Community Services: Policy and Practice, edited by Sara Graham. The papers in this report address issues central to the future development of income support policies, those relating to the integration of income support with the labour market, implications of increased rates of female labour force participation, income support for families with children and for the elderly, as well as fundamental questions of ideology, sustainability and income support design.

The Asian financial crisis and its social aftermath triggered a fundamental reappraisal of the role of social protection in Asia. Existing social protection programmes in many Asian countries were found to be insufficient and not well designed. It is now widely agreed that considerable effort is required to set up and further develop appropriate social protection mechanisms in the region. This book provides the proceedings of two meetings organised by the OECD to discuss the issue of developing social protection. It brings together perspectives of experts from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, as well as contributions from Korea and Australia, plus the views of the Asian Development Bank, the International Labour Organisation and the World Bank.6099 57

This article examines the challenges in designing income-tested benefits for people of working age. This is particularly difficult in the context of changing patterns of work and volatility in earnings and income. Matching benefits to needs requires timely assessment and payment. We compare the treatment of timing issues in the working-age welfare systems of the United Kingdom and Australia. The article discusses how these different but similar systems deal with the timing of income receipt and benefit adjustment, problems of overpayment and debt, and draws out some lessons for the design of income-tested provisions.

Child poverty is on the policy agenda in all OECD countries. One of the main issues in the debate about child poverty is the appropriate balance between the "tax and benefits strategy" (increasing the adequacy of benefits for low income families with children) and the "work strategy" (promoting policies to increase employment among poor families). This article assesses the extent to which child poverty is associated with the work status of parents. It is found that child poverty rates are significantly higher for jobless families than for families with at least one parent in employment, and are significantly higher in single earner families than in two-earner families. The analysis finds, however, that in most OECD countries only a minority of poor families with children are jobless. Nevertheless, jobless families are nearly everywhere the most disadvantaged among the poor, and all countries with very low child poverty rates (less than 5%) have low levels of family joblessness. The article assesses the extent to which child poverty can be reduced by policies which successfully promote higher parental employment, identifying wide variations across countries in the effectiveness of different policy approaches.