Breaking cycles of disadvantage and unlocking opportunity for every Australian.
Many Australians face barriers to essential services like housing, healthcare, childcare, and education. For some, disadvantage begins early, with children beginning kindergarten already behind. As a result, secure, high-skill employment may be out of reach, leading to intergenerational poverty. We provide evidence to break these cycles, promote equality, improve wellbeing, and improve job prospects. Policies ensuring equal opportunities for everyone boost productivity, workforce participation, and economic growth while reducing welfare dependence and income inequality.
We host the Melbourne node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Life Course Centre), which contributes significantly to this important research agenda.
Featured Projects and Research Programs
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Pre-Prep Longitudinal Study
The Pre-Prep study aims to evaluate the impact of extending the hours of universal 4-year-old programs from 15 hours (kindergarten) to 25-30 hours (pre-prep) per week.
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Evaluating the impact of Universal 3‐year‐old kindergarten in Victoria
When starting school, some children are already running behind due to not having had the same access to resources as other children.
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Understanding the Australian tax system: issues of distribution and efficiency
This project seeks to address key questions about the efficiency and redistribution of the Australian tax system.
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Tax and Transfer Policies Around Childbirth: Evidence and Implications
This project analyses how Australia’s tax, welfare, and family policies around the time of childbirth affect household income, poverty risk, and inequality.
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Intergenerational Disadvantage: Causes, Pathways, and Consequences
Growing up in a poor household does not always lead to later poverty, but we still do not fully understand how children escape intergenerational poverty.
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Future Directions for Social Housing NSW Evaluation
Housing is becoming more and more unaffordable for large groups of renters. How can we provide more social and affordable housing of high quality that will have positive impacts on tenants’ outcomes?
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Permanency Support Program Evaluation
Too many children in the out-of-home care system remain in the system for too long and are often moving from one care arrangement to another. This project evaluated a program aimed at addressing this.
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Try, Test and Learn Evaluation
Evaluation of the effectiveness of a range of new approaches aimed at groups at risk of long-term welfare dependence.
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Evaluation of the Paid Parental Leave (PPL) Scheme
With an increasing number of two-earner families in Australia, we need effective policies aimed at supporting families with young children to achieve family-work balance for both parents.
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Household Expenditure Measure; Quarterly Updates
Understanding the minimum reasonable expenditure for different households is important for organisations providing loans as a benchmark for reported expenditure.
Where you are born and who your parents are still has a large impact on the outcomes you can expect in life. Ensuring that everyone, regardless of their background and the place they live, has access to the opportunities needed to thrive is crucial for a fair society.