http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/services/Feed ${session.getAttribute("locale")} 5 http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:58 One way to address problems of labour shortages caused by an ageing labour force would be to increase female labour force participation. This article looks at government work and family policies, family friendly workplace arrangements, bargaining agreements, and legislative inaction in supporting work and family. 2013-03-18T06:09:28.950Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12093 With an ageing population and an increasing incidence of disability, the demand for informal care is increasing when the Federal Government is trying to raise labour force participation. In 2003 16% of the adult population provided informal care. However, ‘Caregiving and receiving is a relationship, providing worth and value to all participants’, so that public policy designed to support caring should not view it merely as a marketable service if not available informally. In this paper, we employ econometric techniques to explore the impact of different specifications of informal care on labour force participation behaviour. The paper then focuses on the interdependence of participation behaviour and the provision of informal co-residential care and how these decisions are conditioned by socioeconomic factors. Finally the implications of the results for the (re)design of public policy are explored. 2012-11-22T02:53:54.331Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:12032 People with mental health disorders are highly disadvantaged in the labour market. They have lower rates of labour force participation, higher rates of unemployment and are more likely to be employed on a part-time basis in lower skill occupations. This paper uses the first seven waves of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data to estimate logistic limited dependent variable models using multiple regression modelling techniques to develop a rich profile of how individual and personal characteristics (supply-side), including mental disorders, interact with broader labour market factors (demand-side) to influence labour market outcomes. Results indicate that people with mental health disorders are less likely to be adequately employed and more likely to be underemployed, unemployed or marginally attached to the labour force. 2012-11-21T06:26:55.366Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:10712 This study examines the impact of female labour force attachment on health in Australia, where health care is socially provided. Longitudinal panel data from Women’s Health Australia is used in a metric analysis to capture the impact of labour market attachment on the physical component health score of relatively young and older female workers. After controlling for the healthy worker effect – wherein firms hire and retain the healthiest workers – and other health-related changes in socio-economic status, the analysis suggests that even a moderate attachment to the paid labour force has benevolent effects on health relative to no or marginal attachment. Given the existing social structure in Australia, remunerative work generally appears to enhance the health of young women and arrest the decline of health for older female workers. 2012-05-01T04:04:14.964Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:303 Sole mothers have lower paid work participation rates than partnered mothers, lower superannuation savings and are less likely to own their own home. This article uses data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health to examine the economic well being of sole mothers and to investigate the contribution of paid work participation to economic well being. 2012-03-01T04:30:05.978Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:13 This article addresses the issue of part-time work and job quality in an exploratory fashion. It highlights the construction and measurement of part-time work and its broad features within the Australian context. It then explores the important question of the nature of job quality, and specifically the quality of part-time jobs. It argues that the gap separating part-time from full-time jobs can constitute the starting point for addressing part-time job quality. 2012-02-23T00:27:34.202Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6176 This paper argues for specific, major, institutional reforms capable of building a high-skilled internationally competitive labour force in Australia. It argues for replacing the current policy of maintaining labour underutilisation as a productivity driver, with a national system of counter-cyclical public sector employment (Job Guarantee) and skills formation infrastructure, organised on a regional basis. The first section introduces the issue of Australia's deficient skill formation capacity. Sections 2 & 3 summarise deficits in key labour market institutions, the Job Network and the tertiary education sector. Section 4 highlights the chronic failure of the private sector to provide supervised opportunities for novices to undertake skilled work. Section 5 argues that the state has a unique responsibility to act, while section 6 proposes necessary components of an institutional framework. The conclusion addresses the political question of opposition to full employment. 2010-05-07T05:41:15.498Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6172 In this paper, we break with the previous research in this area of study and present a richer analysis which incorporates both individual and systemic influences. We argue that individuals have to interact with job characteristics (determined by employers and technology) and local labour market conditions which are heavily conditioned by macroeconomic activity. Thus, an individual can have involuntary constraints imposed upon their possible labour market outcomes that contradict the neoclassical dynamics which are driven by the primacy of individual volition and individual characteristics. However, we limit our analysis in this paper to exploring the transition between casual work and non-casual work. The segmented labour market approach characterises disadvantaged workers as transiting between spells of unemployment, spells of casual work, and even spells outside the labour force (hidden unemployed) over the course of their working lives. To fully appraise the stepping stone hypothesis we would need to incorporate all the transitions from and into casual employment. 2010-05-07T05:40:41.429Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:2917 This paper argues that the introduction of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 in combination with the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) Act 2005 constitutes a new phase in the ongoing assault on the working class to eradicate impediments to the pursuit of profit. WorkChoices builds on the foundation of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 to further entrench employer prerogatives through legal and institutional changes designed to exert downward pressure on wages and working conditions through restricting the scope of awards and agreements, limiting collective bargaining, and marginalising the AIRC. AFPC decisions are likely to force workers into bargaining agreements in an effort to forestall real wage reductions. Welfare to Work complements WorkChoices by cutting income support payments and increasing labour supply by co-opting some of the most disadvantaged groups into the labour force where they must accept any employment offered or participate in Mutual Obligation requirements such as Work for the Dole. 2010-04-27T07:00:19.069Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:1399 In a series of papers, Blackburn et al. claim to solve the conceptual and measurement issues associated with vertical gender segregation by occupation. In this paper it is argued that the authors misinterpret the conventional index measures of segregation, which leads them to a misspecification of their vertical and horizontal components of segregation which are alleged to be orthogonal. As a consequence, the two components are conflated, so that neither component of segregation is correctly calculated. There are also conceptual and measurement difficulties with the cross-national empirical work of Charles (2003). The absence of hierarchical employment data by occupation from the typical Labour Force Survey precludes the estimation of country wide vertical segregation. Data from sources such as the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey will enable the calculation of vertical gender segregation, in addition to the generation of insights about the factors contributing to vertical gender segregation. Case studies too will enable a greater understanding of the extent and causes of vertical gender segregation. 2010-04-27T06:53:00.350Z ]]> http://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:2547 2010-04-27T06:03:48.016Z ]]>