Rosanna Scutella

Employment Polarisation in Australia

Although employment levels in Australia are healthy when compared to those 20 years ago, the distribution of work across households has become more unequal. The present paper measures any polarisation of employment that has taken place in Australian households between 1982 and 2000/01. We find that employment has indeed become polarised across Australian households with most of the polarisation within-household types and not entirely reflecting changes in household size. Particularly worrying is the polarisation found in households with children. This is likely to have consequences for the well-being of future generations.

Work and Family Directions in the USA and Australia: A Policy Research Agenda

This article provides a comparative glimpse of work/family issues in Australia and the USA. It begins with a summary of an emerging vision of ideal policies and practices for work and family. The article then provides historical background for the recent emergence of a ‘care gap’ in both countries, focusing on key commonalities and differences. The current status of the gap and the related ‘default solution’ to the gap are then outlined. Key commonalities here include an increasing diversity of family forms, a rise in delayed and denied childbearing, and substantial gender inequality. Significant current divergence across the societies includes relatively more family-responsive governmental policies in Australia, more attractive part-time opportunities for mothers in Australia, a relatively more equal division of labor in the home in the USA, a greater prevalence of corporate-sponsored work/family policies in the USA, and greater coverage of Australian employees by work/family policies negotiated through enterprise agreements. A tentative research agenda is provided in conclusion, focusing on part-time employment options, work incentives and childcare for single parents, the causes of delayed and denied childbearing, and enterprise bargaining and corporate policies.

Jobless Households in Australia: Incidence, Characteristics and Financial Consequences

An emerging trend in Australia, over the past twenty or so years, has been for employment to become increasingly polarised into households where either no adult is working (jobless households) or all adults are working (all-work households). Despite this, relatively little research has been undertaken in Australia which has focussed specifically on these households. This article seeks to go some way towards filling this gap. Specifically, data from the first wave of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Survey in Australia (HILDA) Survey are used to: (i) quantify the incidence of jobless households in Australia; (ii) identify the characteristics of individuals that are associated with membership of a jobless household; and (iii) examine some of the financial consequences of living in a jobless household. The analysis finds that household joblessness in 2001 remains pervasive with strong associations with factors generally thought to influence individual joblessness such as age, education, ethnicity, illness and family background. It is also found that poverty and financial stress are more a function of household joblessness than of individual joblessness.

Earnings Distributions and Means‐tested Benefits

This paper considers the question of whether it is possible to identify labour supply incentive effects of a tax and transfer system using information on only the distribution of earnings. The major characteristics of earnings distributions arising from a simple labour supply model are examined. These characteristics include the existence of modes and antimodes caused by kinks where effective marginal tax rates increase and non-convexities in budget constraints arising from means-testing. Actual earnings distributions, concentrating on unemployment benefit recipients, are then examined. It is suggested that the use of such an approach must be severely limited, in view of the fact that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the form of the earnings distribution and the parameters of a tax and transfer system. Copyright 2001 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd/University of Adelaide and Flinders University of South Australia