Analysis of components of demographic change

"There exist a number of approaches to analysis of the components of difference between demographic rates using standardization techniques. A generalization of some of these methods, for an arbitrary number of components and an arbitrary analytical function of them, is shown to be the theoretically best choice when the analytical function is linear in each of the components and when linear change is assumed for each of the components. Also, a very close approximation to an exact decomposition for the most general case can be obtained when dealing with change over time and time series data are available."     

The return of the political in social work

This article is a follow-up to our article 'Revisiting social work as art' and in part a response to Karen Healy's reply [both published in IJSW 17(2)]. It is, however, also a significant extension of this material since it engages with more general concerns about the critical project that is intrinsic to social work. Social work is not just about self-foundation based on knowledge, values and skills formation, but also about self-assertion. Crucially, it is through this notion of self-assertion that social work can be best understood as an agent of change. This transformative aspect of social work is our central focus. We are not concerned with structural conditions of power and domination but with theorising what a transformative politics would look like for social work using the lens of the French political philosopher Alain Badiou as a conceptual medium for permitting the return of the political for social work.     

Social work as art revisited

In this article we revisit 'social work as art', noting that it is just over 20 years since England's book on the subject provided a direction for the profession's early defence against empiricism. Those who picked up the ball handed to them by England tended to focus discussions of social work's 'art' on its soft side, embedding it in notions of 'creativity', 'meaning', 'self-expression', 'intuition' and 'quality', all of which were said to characterise the 'aesthetic dimensions' of social work practice as a counterpoint to the rising tide of hard empiricism, proceduralism and managerialism. Within these 'aesthetic dimensions', proponents of social work as art sought to resolve tensions through advocating a value-based 'artistic' approach to care. Against this we argue that art is struggle and resolution, soft and hard, joy and grief. Further, we posit that social work's art lies not in the social worker as artist but rather in social work as the 'work' of art, which is implicitly a 'non-productivist' endeavour. In a fundamental sense we argue that it is the art of social work and not the social worker that assembles what is practice, that provides bounds and lets everything stand in relation to everything else. This enables us to construct a speculative 'radical agonistics' for social work that draws attention to the relation between art, truth and event. In so doing, we substitute a subjectivist reading of social work as art with an ontological analysis drawing on Heidegger's phenomenology, supplemented by the work of Alain Badiou, to cast social work as art first, as artistic attunement, and second, as an art in the service of a politics of liberation.     

Do couples share income? Variation in the organisation of income in dual‐earner households

This paper examines the organisation of income of cohabiting and married dual‐income couples. This topic has gained significance as women increase their participation in the labour force, and increasingly bring additional money into the household. Given the increase in cohabitation, researchers have proposed that financial arrangements may differ according to relationship type. We model the effect of relationship type and previous relationship experience using data from a nationally‐representative survey from Australia. The effect of other factors related to the individual and household, such as length of relationship, educational background, home ownership and presence of children, is also explored. We find income organisation varies by whether the person is legally married or cohabiting, which we attribute to the institution of marriage.