Labour Economics and Social Policy:
Dynamics of Income Support and Employment

Research in this area focuses on labour underutilisation (unemployment and underemployment), welfare reliance and income support recipients.

Projects explore several topics, including the extent, nature, consequences and causes of underutilisation of labour, and the effectiveness of policy interventions aimed at alleviating unemployment.

Other issues examined include the extent and nature of reliance on income support payments, the determinants of patterns of receipt and the impacts of government programs on exit from payments.

Projects completed in 2014

• Labour force potential of Disability Support Pension recipients

Projects completed in 2013

• The labour force participation and income support duration of people with disability and a partial capacity to work
• Job retention and advancement of disadvantaged jobseekers
• Outcomes of Jobs Education Training (JET) childcare fee assistance recipients
• Income support and in-payment incentives to work

Projects completed in 2011

• Activation and welfare dependency
• Employment retention in an economic downturn

Projects completed in 2010

• Transitions of income support recipients with incapacity exemptions
• Impact of education and training on income support recipients
• Dynamics of future mature age workforce participation
• Successful and unsuccessful pathways to employment

Projects completed in 2009

• Combining income support and earnings
• Dynamics of household joblessness in Australia, 2001–2007
• Location economics of income support recipients – Extension project
• Experiences of income support recipients with a mental illness

Projects completed in 2008

• Location economics of income support recipients
• Teenage mothers’ income support, education and paid work
• Working credits – A low cost alternative to universal income tax credits?
• Link between changes in employment and changes in income support
• Human capital and the patterns of employment and welfare receipt
• Labour market transitions and dynamics in Australia: An analysis of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey
• The Dynamics and persistence of income poverty in Australia

Projects completed in 2007

• Use of informal childcare and decisions on work by income support recipients
• The dynamics of income support receipt among ‘new’ income support recipients
• Low pay dynamics: Do low paid jobs lead to increased earnings and lower welfare dependency over time?

Projects completed in 2006

• An examination of welfare transitions using the first three waves of the HILDA Survey
• Income support spells initiated by unemployment: Commonalities and heterogeneities across population groups in duration and determination of duration
• Previous income support experience of people granted DSP
• Jobless households: longitudinal analysis of the persistence and determinants of joblessness using HILDA data for 2001–2003
• Income support reliance in Australia
• Transitions from casual employment in Australia

Projects completed in 2005

• Understanding the nature of and factors behind exits from the Disability Support Pension (Working Paper 18/2006)
• Synthesis of Melbourne Institute Research, 2000 to 2005

Projects completed in 2004

• Working hours and labour market transitions
• The Melbourne Institute analysis of the Australian Labor Party’s Tax and Family Benefits Package
• Dynamic properties of income support in Australia

Projects completed in 2003

• Effect of changes to activity test arrangements on exit from payments:
  • Part A: Mutual obligation
  • Part B: Intensive review (Working Paper 25/2003)
  • Part C: Job Seeker Diary (Working Paper 27/2003)
  • Part D: Work for the Dole (Working Paper 14/2004)

Projects completed in 2002

• Movements between benefit types (Working Paper)
• International comparison of trends in the polarisation of employment
• Reliance on income support in Australia
• Labour market outcomes and welfare dependence of persons with disabilities in Australia