How parents' income,time and job quality affect children's health and development

The advent of the Global Financial Crisis reminds us that modern epidemiological research has consistently demonstrated links between the socio‐economic circumstances of families and children's health and development. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, this article firstly examines the evidence for intergenerational transmission of socio‐economic disadvantage from parents to young children. It then examines parents' jobs as another source of social inequality. Results confirm that children's healthy development is affected by family income, by parents' hours of work and by the quality of parents' jobs. Job combinations that include long work hours of mothers and fathers and poorer quality jobs are associated with elevated rates of parental mental health problems, less time spent in developmentally important activities with children, and socio‐emotional developmental difficulties for children. The evidence suggests that these effects are greater within low income families. These findings highlight the need for social and economic policies to move beyond simplistic notions of promoting parental workforce participation as a way of reducing the adverse effects of social disadvantage. A more nuanced approach is required that considers the additional impacts of the quality and characteristics of jobs, especially for the parents of young children.     

Redefining viability: Aboriginal homelands communities in north‐east Arnhem Land

The current policy debate about the future of small Indigenous homelands communities in remote Australia is being framed in terms of a narrow economic definition of ‘viability’, with little attention to factors such as the social characteristics of such communities and the health, well‐being, and aspirations of those who choose to live there. The debate is taking place in the absence of comparative socio‐demographic data on these communities as opposed to other kinds of settlements in remote Australia. This paper argues for a broader conceptualisation of viability. It outlines some reasons why governments might consider helping homelands communities to become more economically self‐sufficient rather than starving them of support so that their inhabitants increasingly face a ‘choice’ between a marginalized and impoverished existence on the homelands and recentralisation in larger settlements. The argument is based on an analysis of ethnographic data from north‐east Arnhem Land that demonstrate the social cohesiveness and functionality of homelands communities as compared to larger hub settlements.     

Gambling in Australian Indigenous communities: the state of play

Gambling has both positive aspects and negative effects for Australian Indigenous gamblers and families. While traditional card games organised by the communities themselves have been found to have important social value, there is increasing evidence that commercial gambling such as gaming machines (‘pokies‘), casinos and TAB betting has a range of far‐reaching negative social and economic consequences for Indigenous population groups. However an understanding of participation by Indigenous people in contemporary gambling is still undeveloped and is dominated by western concepts. The cultural distinctiveness and complexity of Indigenous Australia create profound conceptual and methodological difficulties with the potential to distort the research process and outcomes, as well as policy solutions. The current lack of understanding also impacts on the cultural relevance and effectiveness of service provision for Indigenous gamblers, their families and communities.     

The housing fulcrum: Balancing economic and social factors in housing research and policy

Abstract

We discuss the pivotal role that housing plays for both social and economic outcomes. All people need to be housed, and housing circumstances help determine social outcomes, especially for vulnerable groups. We outline an analytical framework that treats housing as a dynamic system, incorporating the life‐cycles of both individuals/households and houses. Each is long‐lived; decisions impact on housing for decades. This approach is relevant to the development of housing research and housing policy. We illustrate the issues with reference to the relationship between rental yields and measures of deprivation across New Zealand. The surprising nature of this relationship has consequences regarding potential poverty traps and wealth disparities. While highlighting an important housing market issue, any policy response to this issue is complicated by the need to take account of the life‐cycles of both individuals and of houses, and by the long‐lasting impacts of decisions.     

The social and economic impacts of drought

Although the environmental and economic impacts of drought have been widely studied, few large‐scale studies have examined the broader social impacts of drought. To fill this knowledge gap, the Australian Institute of Family Studies undertook the Regional and Rural Families Survey in 2007, when a significant part of Australia was experiencing a severe drought. This paper analyses that survey to measure the extent to which drought affects a range of economic, health and social outcomes. Drought is found to have a substantial negative economic and health impact on farmers and others employed in the agricultural sector. There is some evidence that groups that are not employed in agriculture are adversely affected, with a widespread loss of services in drought‐affected areas and some marginal labour market groups (e.g. carers) experiencing poor employment outcomes in a drought‐affected local economy. Policymakers need to take these impacts into account in designing effective responses to future droughts.     

The social and economic impacts of immigration detention facilities: a South Australian case study

The negative attitudes fostered by political rhetoric against asylum seekers create significant problems when asylum seekers are housed within communities. Much of the community's opposition focuses on the perceived economic and social impacts of large numbers of asylum seekers. However, we currently lack research on the local economic and social impacts of asylum seekers. As a contribution to this evidence base our paper outlines a South Australian case study of the impact of a low security immigration detention facility on the local economy, health services and social cohesion. Our impact assessment found that community concerns were not borne out. There were increases in employment and local expenditure, no reduction in health care services or access, and tensions between residents subsided, as did initially strong reactions against the asylum seekers themselves. The minimal impacts were due to the government and community interventions such as seeking local contracts and providing onsite health services. This case study is used to provide some guidelines for other communities to effectively target the fears that matter most to the community – either through disseminating information that reduces fears and myths, or through planning and interventions that minimise negative impacts and enhance positive benefits. In this way, the arrival of asylum seekers can potentially become one that benefits all community members.     

Threat, Group Identification, and Children's Ethnic Prejudice

This experiment tested predictions from social identity development theory (SIDT, Nesdale, 1999 ), that children's tendency to show out‐group prejudice depends on the strength of their in‐group identification and/or their perception of threat from the out‐group. Anglo‐Australian children (N= 480) aged 6, 7, or 9 years were assigned to a high‐status team and their identification with the in‐group (high vs. low) was manipulated together with threat from the out‐group (present vs. absent). The members of the out‐group were revealed to be of the same (Anglo‐Australian) or different (Pacific Islander) ethnicity to the in‐group. Results supported the SIDT predictions. In addition, consistent with socio‐cognitive theory (ST, Aboud, 1988 ), dislike for the out‐group at 6 years gave way to increasingly neutral reactions by 9 years of age. Ethnic composition of the out‐group did not impact differentially on liking but it did affect the children's desire to change groups. Strongly identified children were reluctant to leave their group regardless of the ethnicity of the out‐group, whereas children with low in‐group identification were more willing to change into a same‐ than into a different‐ethnicity out‐group. It is concluded that both social identity and social cognitive processes are implicated in the development of prejudice in middle childhood.     

THE IMPACTS OF DEREGULATION AND AGRICULTURAL RESTRUCTURING FOR RURAL AUSTRALIA

As a leader in the Cairns Group of Nations, Australia has been advancing deregulation in agri‐food trade. Successive governments have assumed that Australia would benefit from a greater deregulation of international trade because this would allow increased access to world markets for primary agricultural commodities. But regulation exists, at least in Europe, to protect the social value of the rural landscape. Australian governments, strongly influenced by economic rationalist ideology, have given insufficient consideration to the rural social landscape. Little critical reflection has taken place about whether Australia, and its farmers, would actually benefit from deregulation, or what the social impacts of this trend might be. Deregulation inevitably invokes structural adjustment, forces farmers out of agriculture, depopulates rural areas, and creates social hardship. There are also environmental ramifications. The exit of farmers from agriculture has not been as fast as was expected by economists and policy‐makers, with many farmers adapting to new situations.     

Putting the parity into service‐user participation: An integrated model of social justice

Models of service‐user participation have derived from citizenship or consumerist agendas, neither of which has achieved the structural reforms important for the most marginalised social work clients. This article proposes Fraser's model of ‘parity of participation’ as an appropriately multifaceted frame for capturing the social justice aspirations of service‐user participation. A qualitative case study compared the experiences and expectations of people who had used Australian mental health services with a sample who had used Australian homelessness services to examine their expectations of participation at individual and representative levels. The findings reinforce concerns from Fraser's research about the tendency for identity‐based consumerist notions of participation to reify group identity. This leads to tokenistic service‐user involvement strategies that have little impact on participation at a structural level. Fraser's parity of participation is shown to have untested potential to reshape service‐user participation to meet the social justice aspirations of social work clients. Key Practitioner Message: ● Innovative, service‐user driven strategies for collaboration will be those which challenge existing power structures; ● Service users want their contributions to decision making to generate identifiable change in the system of social services; ● The success of service‐user participation strategies might be the extent to which political, economic and cultural opportunities are enhanced.     

‘You don't want to be a check‐out chick all your life’: The out‐migration of young people from Australia's small rural towns

Globalisation and changes in agriculture have resulted in major social changes in inland Australia. Depopulation of the inland has led many to speculate on the future of rural towns and rural people. This paper will examine population drifts from country towns to cities and from the inland to the coastal regions and, in particular, the out‐migration of young people. In doing this, the paper focuses on several small towns in central New South Wales that have been the subject of intensive study during 2000 and 2001. Drawing on analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, in‐depth interviews and focus groups with key informants and surveys with young people and their parents in small rural communities the paper will report on the loss of young people and the greater loss of young women from these areas. It is argued that this outmigration of young people is linked to the need to seek higher education and also to the loss of full‐time jobs for young people. The loss of these jobs is the result of changes in agricultural production, labour market restructuring and a withdrawal of public and private sector services. It is further argued that current reliance by governments on market based and community self‐help solutions is not enough to provide a future for rural communities. Even if economic growth occurs this will not solve the problem of loss of young people, and the greater loss of young women, nor will it address the issue of access to education and training. Rather far greater attention to human capital (access to education, training and employment), institutional capital (government and non‐government services and infrastructure) and social capital (strong networks) is needed if Australia's small rural towns are to survive and flourish.     

Achievements,experiences and challenges: The 30-year development of social policy in China

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a brief summary of China’s social policy in the last three decades by dividing it into two significant stages. It analyses the different policy orientations and concrete measurements in the two stages. According to the author, the changes and development of China’s social policy in the last three decades were, to a large extent, responses to the economic transition and the current socio-economic conditions. In the first stage, China’s social policy had to keep a low social welfare level to support the labour-intensive and foreign-trade oriented economic model in the 1990s. In the second stage, it had turned more to solve serious social problems and responded to the new economic and social challenges. After the fast development of almost two decades, China’s social policy is still facing big challenges. Several important issues for further social policy development are discussed in this paper.     

Meeting (or not) at the street level? A literature review on street‐level research in public management,social policy and social work

This literature review analyses the adoption and development of a street‐level perspective in public management, social policy and social work. The last years have seen a prominent revival of a perspective based on Michael Lipsky's street‐level bureaucracy approach in the debates conducted within all three disciplinary fields. Based on 71 key publications in public management, social policy and social work, the review analyses the adoption of the street‐level bureaucracy approach during the period 2005–2015, pointing out the main themes of the debate within, as well as overlaps and differences between, the three disciplines. The findings show the potential of better integrating the different perspectives and taking stock of the articulated debate. Lastly, the review discerns a common viewpoint for further street‐level research, emphasising its importance for the critical analysis and understanding of street‐level work as a vital dimension of responsive and accountable institutions and as a decisive moment to shape positive policy outcomes on the ground. Key Practitioner Message: ? The use of discretion by frontline practitioners and their role as policy actors on the ground has become an important focus of research; ? This literature review shows that the debate has gone far beyond discussing discretion as an all‐or‐nothing issue, pointing out both positive and negative aspects of discretion and developing comprehensive frameworks to explain the use of discretion at the street‐level; ? However, street‐level research has traditionally rather neglected the notion of professionalism. The social work literature brings in the perspective of professionalism; more research efforts are needed to better explore and explain how professionalism matters in relation to challenges and dilemmas of different policy and practice fields.     

The Role of Media System Development in the Emergence of Postmaterialist Values and Environmental Concern: A Cross‐National Analysis*

Important theories related to the social development of environmental concern and attitudes ascribe different roles to the media. Inglehart's materialist–postmaterialist value shift thesis sees the development of a more advance media system as promoting pro‐environmental values. Gerbner's cultivation theory, on the other hand, sees the media as promoting consumerist tendencies, which run counter to environmental concern. This study examines the effect of media system development on postmaterialist values and environmental concern at the national and individual levels. Controlling for other factors known to impact the emergence of environmental concern, the overall effect of media system development is largely negative. However, this result should be considered in light of interactions within and among other key variables. Hierarchical linear modeling is employed to examine the impact of media system development on environmental concern considering individual‐ and country‐level predictors. Results indicate media system development uniquely explains a small but significant amount of variation in individual‐level environmental concern. Findings are discussed in the theoretical context of country‐level predictors of environmental concern.     

The potential of asset‐based development strategies for poverty alleviation in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Ssewamala FM, Sperber, ES, Zimmerman JM, Karimli L. The potential of asset‐based development strategies for poverty alleviation in Sub‐Saharan Africa Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 433–443 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. This article explores the potential of a relatively new approach to social development as a poverty alleviation strategy in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA): asset‐based development, an integrated approach to human, social, and economic capital formation. It considers the theoretical framework guiding asset‐based development and the accompanying set of programmatic and policy‐level tools for poverty alleviation in SSA. After considering the recent historical and theoretical contexts of the approach, the authors examine the potential of asset‐based development programs, specifically savings‐led microfinance programs for the poor, to engender development and, more specifically, poverty alleviation in the region. Major challenges and directions for future research are presented.     

Citizens' attitudes towards economic insecurity and government after the 2007 financial tsunami: A Hong Kong and Taiwan comparison

Wang KY‐T, Wong C‐k, Tang K‐L. Citizens' attitudes towards economic insecurity and government after the 2007 financial tsunami: A Hong Kong and Taiwan comparison The purpose of this study was to investigate people's attitudes to economic insecurity and government in Hong Kong and Taiwan after the financial tsunami of 2007. Random sampling telephone surveys were conducted in July 2009. These are the main conclusions: First, the most vulnerable groups hurt by the financial crisis were low‐income families and people who had lost their job or were afraid of losing it. This implies that the old policy issue of social stratification and the emerging policy issue of employment insecurity coexisted during the financial crisis. Second, personal experiences of economic insecurity had an influence on people's perceptions of the severity of the economic crisis at the societal level. Third, citizens had ambivalent feelings about public interventions during the crisis. Fourth, there were both convergence and divergence between Hong Kong and Taiwan with regard to attitudes to particular issues. The policy implications of these findings are discussed in the final section of this article.     

The Transnational Organization of Production and Environmental Degradation: A Cross‐National Study of the Effects of Foreign Capital Penetration on Water Pollution Intensity, 1980–1995*

Objective. This study attempts to increase our understanding of the environmental impacts of the transnational organization of production in the context of foreign capital penetration. Methods. With a sample of 53 countries, panel analyses using OLS and robust regression are conducted to assess the effects of foreign direct investment in the manufacturing sector on growth in organic water pollution intensity, 1980–1995. Slope‐dummy interaction variables are used to compare the effects in developed countries and less‐developed countries. The tested models include a variety of relevant controls, such as domestic investment, state environmentalism, size of the manufacturing sector, and level of economic development. Results. Findings for the analyses indicate that foreign direct investment in manufacturing positively affects growth in organic water pollution intensity in less‐developed countries, while the effect in developed countries is nonsignificant. Conclusions. This research illustrates the need for social scientists to investigate the environmental impacts of both the transnational organization of production and the overall scale of production in different sectors.     

Social psychology and neoliberalism: A critical commentary on McDonald,Gough, Wearing,and Deville (2017)

McDonald, Gough, Wearing, and Deville (2017) call for the discipline of social psychology to investigate issues of neoliberalism, consumption and self‐identity more seriously. We make two contributions in relation to their analysis. First, we highlight some current issues associated with neoliberalism as a concept that leave us in doubt regarding the analytical usefulness of the term. Due to its imprecision and over‐extension, predominant association with the left who use it pejoratively, and altered economic circumstances, we are increasingly skeptical of neoliberalism's analytical validity to social psychology. Second, we also stress the importance of interdisciplinarity, but suggest that empirical insights from mainstream social psychology have much to offer social scientists concerned with how current economic developments impact upon self‐identity and social behaviour. We conclude by pointing out that a greater openness to heterodoxy within and between critical and mainstream strands and the wider social sciences are required if social psychologists are going to make more persuasive impacts to the study and resistance of market logic.     

The impact of government spending on Ireland’s housing and residential market – Targeted vs economy-wide stimulus

The Irish residential property market is currently characterized by a considerable structural deficiency in housing supply compared to the underlying level of demand. The lack of housing has led to several economic and social problems in Ireland. The imbalance between supply and demand has led to both house prices and rents increasing faster than household incomes. Recent policy initiatives by the Irish Government have outlined plans for significant spending aimed at increasing the numbers of housing completions to tackle these issues. This paper examines the impact of government spending on housing supply using a structural econometric model of the Irish economy with a specific construction block. Within our econometric analysis, we compare the results of an economy wide versus a sector specific government stimulus on the property market. Our simulations suggest that, in order to achieve social and economic goals like increasing the number of dwellings and making housing more affordable by containing house price inflation, a targeted policy such as that described in the Irish Government's Housing for All plan may be preferable to an economy-wide stimulus.     

The Economic and Social Impacts of the CDEP Scheme in Remote Australia

The Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme is an unusual labour market and social development program for Indigenous people. Currently the CDEP scheme employs around 36,000 Indigenous Australians and accounts for over one‐quarter of total Indigenous employment. Despite the significance of the CDEP scheme, in recent times, relatively little attention has been given to the potential for the scheme to be used as an instrument for economic and social development in remote areas of Australia. This article present new evidence on the impact of the CDEP scheme on economic and social outcomes for Indigenous people in remote areas of Australia. It is concluded that the scheme has been successful in generating positive economic and community development outcomes at minimal cost to the Australian taxpayer.