Recent reforms to the Australian system of income support for the unemployed have been designed to encourage the welfare to work transition. Mutual obligation measures have been accompanied by an easing of the income test taper rate and by less generous indexation arrangements for unemployment...

This paper contains an empirical analysis of gross job flows in Finland and of the factors that explain the extensive withdrawal of older workers from employment in the 1990s in Finland. Job flows are characterised in terms of employee age and education. The outflow of workers from employment...

With governments worldwide attempting to increase the labour force participation of older workers in the context of ageing populations, both older workers marginally attached to the labour force (discouraged workers), and those whose labour force participation is affected by cyclical...

Statutory minimum wages increased substantially in New Zealand between 2000 and 2008. Where less than three per cent of workers were being paid the minimum wage in the late 1990s, this figure increased to more than ten per cent of workers by 2008. However, it is not obvious how this rise in the...

From 2006 to 2009, Federal minimum wages in Australia were set by the Australian Fair Pay Commission. This paper uses data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia panel survey to investigate the circumstances of persons who are paid at or near the minimum wage, and thus...

This paper provides pictures of low pay adult employees in Australia in 2004 drawing on data from the HILDA survey. The low paid are disaggregated into full-time and part-time employees. Estimates from multivariate probit models reveal that low wage employees are more likely to have casual...

This paper reports the preliminary results of a randomised social experiment conducted by the Department of Family and Community Services involving approximately 5,000 Parenting Payment customers. Three samples of Parenting Payment customers were randomly selected. One sample was asked to...

The collection of the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) in 2002 provides a valuable new source of data on Indigenous labour force status. Apart from the 1994 NATSIS until now the only useful data available to assess the labour market circumstances of Indigenous...

Over the last three decades Aboriginal employment growth, outside of CDEP, has been extremely disappointing. Indeed, the full-time employment-population ratio remains at about 60 per cent of that of white Australians. We document the nature of employment growth and the data needed to more...

It is well accepted that a highly educated and well trained labour force is a precondition for sustained economic growth and development, and that the labour market outcomes for individuals are enhanced with higher levels of education and training. Recognition of these facts has influenced the...