Stephen Whelan

The Impact of Childcare Costs on the Full-Time/Part-Time Employment Decisions of Australian Mothers

Using data from the HILDA (Household Income and Labour Dynamics), this paper examines the implications of childcare costs on maternal employment status by distinguishing between full-time and part-time work. Our empirical approach uses an ordered probit model taking into account the endogeneity associated with both wages and childcare costs. Results indicate that childcare costs have a statistically insignificant effect on the decision to work either full time or part time. Moreover, the reported elasticities of part-time and full-time work with respect to childcare costs are relatively low. Finally, our results indicate that Australian mothers respond to an increase in wages by increasing both their full-time and part-time employment. Conversely, an increase in the number of young children (particularly under four years of age) and an increase in non-labour income reduce the likelihood of the mother is observed to be working.

Nurse Education and the Retention of Registered Nurses in New South Wales

The retention of registered nurses (RNs) in the nursing profession has become a key issue for governments. This article examines the impact of a change in the nature of nurse education, from hospital-based to university-based training, on the labour market behaviour of RNs. The analysis indicates that RNs trained in universities are approximately 6 per cent more likely to exit the nursing workforce than hospital-trained RNs. The analysis highlights the need to develop policies to address the low retention rates for nurses in the health system such as developing clearer career paths and enhancing the non-pecuniary aspects of nursing.

Health services use and lifestyle choices of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

In many countries, the health outcomes of Indigenous populations are far worse than those of non-Indigenous populations. Two possible reasons for these differences are poor lifestyle choices and a lack of access to health services when ill. This paper uses Australian data on 17,449 adults, which was collected in the National Health Survey 2004-05 and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey 2004-05, to examine whether Indigenous Australians make different lifestyle choices and health services use than non-Indigenous Australians. After controlling for a range of observable characteristics, it is found that Indigenous Australian are more likely to make poorer lifestyle choices, but are more likely to use health services than non-Indigenous Australians. There is evidence that these results are magnified for Indigenous Australians who live in remote areas. As the lifestyle choices of Indigenous Australians are so different from those of non-Indigenous Australians, the payoff from policies aimed at changing these choices is likely to be large both in terms of the efficient use of the health budget and more importantly in terms of health outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

Intergenerational transfers and housing tenure – Australian evidence

Australia has a long tradition of home-ownership though there is evidence that rates of home-ownership are declining. Anecdotal evidence suggests that older Australians are facilitating home-ownership for younger cohorts through intergenerational transfers. This paper examines the relationship between housing tenure and transfers in the form of bequests and gifts. We find evidence that intergenerational transfers are associated with a higher probability that recipients subsequently transition into home-ownership. For those at the edges of home-ownership, intergenerational transfers potentially play an important role in facilitating home-ownership. Moreover, given the central role of home-ownership for the savings and wealth accumulation of Australians, such patterns may exacerbate existing inequality and potentially undermine the role that housing may play in a broad-based policy of asset-based welfare.

Pricing Dynamics in the Australian Airline Market

We examine price dispersion in a large dataset of Australian domestic airfares. The airlines vary the lowest available fares on successive booking days by restricting the menu of available ticket types, and by changing the prices for some of those types. Our fixed-effects estimator allows us to characterise both of those mechanisms. The greatest price variation occurs on routes involving competition between the two main airlines, Qantas and Virgin; there is greater variation on monopoly routes than on routes pitting Virgin against the Qantas subsidiary, Jetstar. The lowest fares rise rapidly in the week before travel.

House Prices, Wealth and Consumption: New Evidence from Australia and Canada

Over the past two decades, a number of countries have experienced appreciation in house prices at the same time that aggregate consumption has increased. This paper tests alternative hypotheses for this phenomenon by using repeated household surveys from Australia and Canada to identify the transmission mechanism that links consumption and household wealth. The empirical analysis suggests that neither a direct wealth effect nor a common causal factor likely accounts for the observed correlation between wealth and consumption in these two countries. Rather, indirect factors such as collateral effects arising from relaxation of credit constraints are a more likely explanation.

The Dynamics of Public Housing Tenure in Australia

The analysis in this paper presents evidence on the behaviour of tenants in public housing in Australia. Using a unique administrative dataset for West Australia, we identify the nature of spells in public housing and the determinants of the length of those spells. Our results indicate that lone parents and single individuals experience longer spells in public housing compared with couple households. We find that an increase in the market rent of a property in the order of

The Decline of the Self‐Employment Rate in Australia

100 per month reduces the hazard out of public housing by between 17 per cent (lone parents) and 10 per cent (couples).

The Interaction Between Income Support Programs

This paper using the Australian panel data(HILDA) investigates the declining trend of self-employment rate in Australia, a pattern observed in a number of other developed countries in the 2000s. We focus on the entry into and the exit from self-employment, treating males and females separately. Our results show that the self-employment rate has declined in Australia because older workers, especially older female workers, remained longer in paid-employment. This finding indicates that although the self-employment rate of older workers is higher than that of younger workers, the gap has decreased in recent years so that the average self-employment rate has declined. In addition, we provide some evidence that industry and institutional changes, such as reforms in tax and pension systems, may have contributed to an increase in the labour force participation of older females, which may explain why the decline of self-employment has been severe for this group.

Confidentiality is Not Enough: Framing Effects in Student Evaluation of Economics Teaching

Employment insurance (EI) and social assistance (SA) represent two key income support programs in Canada. The structure of these programs is similar to those found in many countries where unemployed individuals may use a number of sources to fund job-search activities and provide income support during periods of diminished employment income. In this paper, we examine the nature of the interaction between the programs and their overall impact on labor market outcomes. We use the 1997 Canadian Out of Employment Panel data set to examine behavior of a set of individuals following the loss of employment. Results indicate that reductions in the generosity of SA results in lower use of both income support programs. Conversely, if the generosity of the EI program is curtailed this reduces use of the EI program and leads to greater use of the SA program.