High and persistent unemployment has presented a major challenge for the welfare state from two directions. First, it has eroded the funding base and second, it has increased the demands on welfare programs because of the consequences for poverty and inequality resulting from high unemployment....

Disincentives to employment participation arising from the tax-benefit system have been a major concern for welfare reform. Data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey are used to generate and test the robustness of three commonly used disincentive measures for...

This analysis uses a sample selection model to estimate the hours of work decision for married women in Australia using unit record data for 1995 and 1996. Hours of work are found to be positively related to the after tax wage rate and negatively related to unearned income (which includes social...

Women are participating in the labour market in higher proportions than in the past, with the female participation rate in June 2012 standing at 58.9 per cent. However, a gendered pattern of workforce engagement persists, particularly as it concerns part-time employment; 70 per cent all...

In this paper, we study the enterprise bargaining process in the Queensland Police Service and the consequences of resultant new payment arrangements. Although both management and the union were convinced that no one would be worse off under enterprise bargaining, views amongst the affected...

This paper investigates a tentative finding in recent literature that the age dispersion of workers matters for average firm productivity. The reason is not related to differences in the workers’ age specific productivity levels. Rather it is that workers of different ages are complementary in...

Carers have, on average, a more tenuous and weaker attachment to the labour market than non-carers because they face a complex set of demands on their time and must balance the needs of other people. Accordingly, it is plausible that regional shocks from droughts may adversely affect carers...

This research examines the effect of disability status on the labour market earnings of males and females in Australia. The results indicate that disabilities have a large impact on labour earnings, however, this impact is not uniform across disabilities or between males and females for the same...

In this paper we introduce the particular issues involved in analysing the 2002 NATSISS. We discuss a number of aspects of the survey methodology including the scope, sample design and interviewing techniques. We pay particular attention to the different survey methodology used in Community...