Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:20:37.805Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Jobless Households in Australia: Incidence, Characteristics and Financial Consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Rosanna Scutella  and
Mark Wooden
Mark Wooden
Affiliation:
Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

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.

Type
Symposium on Social Inclusion
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , January 2004 , pp. 187 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2004

References

Beck, U. (2000) The Brave New World of Work, Polity Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Dawkins, P. (1996) ‘The Distribution of Work in Australia’, The Economic Record, 72 (218): 272–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, P., Gregg, P., Scutella, R. (2002a) ‘Employment Polarisation in Australia’, Melbourne Institute Working Paper No. 9/02, The University of Melbourne, Australia.Google Scholar
Dawkins, P., Gregg, P., Scutella, R. (2002b) ‘The Growth of Jobless Households in Australia’, The Australian Economic Review, 35 (2): 133–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freidin, S., Watson, N., Wooden, M. (2002) ‘HILDA Survey Coding Framework: Confidentialised Data’, HILDA Technical Paper Series No. 2/02, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Gregg, P. and Wadsworth, J. (1996a) ‘More Work in Fewer Households?’, in Hills, J. (Ed.), New Inequalities: The Changing Distribution of Income and Wealth in the UK, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gregg, P., Wadsworth, J. (1996b) ‘It Takes Two: Employment Polarization in the OECD’, Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper no. 304, London School of Economics and Political Science, London.Google Scholar
Gregg, P., Wadsworth, J. (2000) ‘Two Sides to Every Story: Measuring Joblessness and Polarisation at Household Level’, Centre for Economic Performance Working Paper No. 1099, London School of Economics and Political Science, London.Google Scholar
Gregory, R. (1999) ‘Children and the Changing Labour Market: Joblessness in Families with Dependent Children’, Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper No. 406, Australian National University, Canberra.Google Scholar
Headey, B. (2003) ‘How Best to Impute Taxes and Measure Public Transfers?’ HILDA Project Discussion Paper Series No. 2/03, October, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
OECD (1998) Employment Outlook, July 1998, OECD, Paris.Google Scholar
Miller, P. (1997) ‘The Burden of Unemployment on Family Units: An Overview’, Australian Economic Review, 30 (1): 16–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nevile, A. (2002) State of the Family 2002, Anglicare Australia, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Reference Group on Welfare Reform (2000) Participation Support for a More Equitable Society: Final Report of the Reference Group on Welfare Reform, Department of Family and Community Services, Canberra.Google Scholar
Scutella, R., Wooden, M. (2004) Jobless Households in Australia: Incidence, Characteristics and Consequences, Report prepared for the Australian Government Department of Family and Community and Services. Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Watson, N., Wooden, M. (2002a) ‘The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey: Wave 1 Survey Methodology’, HILDA Project Technical Paper Series No. 1/02, May (Revised September 2002), Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Watson, N., Wooden, M. (2002b) ‘Assessing the Quality of the HILDA Survey: Wave 1 Data’, HILDA Project Technical Paper Series No. 4/02, October, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Watson, N., Wooden, M. (2003) ‘Towards an Imputation Strategy for Wave 1 of the HILDA Survey’, HILDA Project Technical Paper Series No. 1/03, March, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Wooden, M. (1994) ‘The Labour-Market Experience of Immigrants’, in Wooden, M., Holton, R., Hugo, G., Sloan, J., Australian Immigration: A Survey of the Issues (2nd ed.), Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, pp. 218–279.Google Scholar
Wooden, M., Freidin, S., Watson, N. (2002) ‘The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey: Wave 1’, Australian Economic Review, 35 (3): 339–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar