Introduction to the special issue on welfare conditionality in Australia

Conditionality in Australia’s welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique, including the critique published in this journal. In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues, we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality. This Special Issue aimed to provide empirical scrutiny into welfare reform and conditionality in Australia. The articles extend our understanding of welfare conditionality’s underpinnings and its lived effects. These case studies illuminate the aspects of welfare conditionality that have not received enough attention: the role of technology, the question of mobility, the relationship with housing and the little thought given to the state’s role in mutual obligation. What is clear is that the individualisation of structural problems is not just a theoretical and political misstep ripe for critique, but leads to the formulation of policies that impact marginalised people’s capacity to shape life on their own terms. Through different empirical foci, all papers in this Special Issue demonstrate how welfare conditionality is put forward as a solution to address the consequences of structural disadvantage.     

Life after loss: Comparing student service member/veteran and civilian mental health characteristics among individuals exposed to death by suicide

Objective: This study evaluated the mental health characteristics and beliefs of student service members/veterans (SSM/Vs) who have been exposed to another’s death by suicide.

Participants: A total of 39 SSM/Vs exposed to suicide and 32 SSM/Vs not exposed to suicide were sampled from a larger, epidemiological survey. An age- and gender-matched group of 39 civilian (C) students was drawn from a larger sample of individuals exposed to suicide.

Methods: Data were collected as part of an Internet-based, campus needs survey that occurred in Fall 2014. Participants were asked to complete measures about suicide-related behaviors, suicide prevention, help-seeking, and demographics.

Results: SSM/Vs exposed to suicide had more positive mental health/suicide prevention beliefs than SSM/Vs not exposed to suicide. Cs exposed to suicide were not significantly different from either group. Unique help-seeking patterns were also identified.

Conclusions: The current study identifies unique characteristics of SSM/Vs exposed to suicide that may inform prevention programming.     

Potential Climate Change Health Risks from Increases in Heat Waves: Abnormal Birth Outcomes and Adverse Maternal Health Conditions

We investigate the risks presented by heat waves for adverse health conditions for babies and expectant mothers when these mothers have been exposed to heat waves during gestation or during the period just prior to conception. Rather than just birth weight and gestational age, we focus on less common metrics such as abnormal conditions in the newborn (fetal distress, reliance on a ventilator, and meconium aspiration) and adverse health conditions in the mother (pregnancy‐related hypertension, uterine bleeding during pregnancy, eclampsia, and incompetent cervix). We use monthly panel data for over 3,000 U.S. counties, constructed from the confidential version of the U.S. Natality Files for 1989–2008. Our models control for sociodemographic factors and include county, month, and state‐by‐year fixed effects to control for unobserved spatial and timewise heterogeneity in the data. Even within the United States, where there is widespread access to air conditioning, heat waves increase the fraction of babies with abnormal conditions related to maternal stress, as well as the fraction of mothers who experience pregnancy‐related adverse health conditions. The scope for these risks in developing countries is likely to be even greater.     

“Replacement Migration”: The UN Population Division on European Population Decline

The imminent decline of populations in Europe, Japan and South Korea has generated widespread apprehension, largely because of fears that there will not be enough working age people to support the elderly. The UN Population Division has seemed to endorse those fears by an analysis of the levels of immigration needed to provide a constant number or ratio of workers, and by writing of the need for a solution to population decline. On the other hand, smaller populations would be environmentally advantageous in those countries. They must return to replacement level fertility or risk replacement by other populations, but they would benefit if they reached stationarity at a smaller population level. The transition is manageable if a higher proportion of working age people go to work. Right now, though dependency ratios are supposedly highly favorable, most of those countries are plagued by high unemployment levels.     

Modeling Quality-Adjusted Life Expectancy Loss Resulting from Tobacco use in the United States

Purpose  To describe the development of a model for estimating the effects of tobacco use upon Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and to estimate the impact of tobacco use on health outcomes for the United States (US) population using the model. Method  We obtained estimates of tobacco consumption from 6 years of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). In addition, NHIS data were used to impute the Quality of Well-Being (QWB) Scale using a new methodology known as QWBX1. The QWB places health status on a continuum ranging from death (0.0) to full functioning without symptoms (1.0). The method allows the adjustment of life expectancy for reduced quality of life associated with health conditions. NHIS data were matched to the National Death Index for 14,464 deaths occurring by December 31, 1997. The analysis is limited to adults between the ages of 18 and 70 years. Results  Quality of Well-Being scores were broken down by age and for six smoking categories: (1) non-smokers, (2) those who smoke 1–10 cigarettes per day, (3) 11–20 cigarettes per day, (4) 21–30 cigarettes per day, and (5) 31–40 cigarettes per day, and (6) 40 or greater cigarettes per day. There was a systematic relationship between current tobacco use and health-related quality of life at each point along the age spectrum and there was a clear and systematic separation of quality-adjusted life expectancy by number of cigarettes smoked per day. Teenagers who continue to smoke loose 3.5 QALYs between ages 18 and 70 in comparison to non-smokers. A greater portion in the loss in QALE is attributable to quality of life than to shorten life expectancy. Conclusions  The overall goal of Healthy People 2010 is to increase Years of Healthy Life (or QALE) in the United States. Each year, tobacco use results in hundreds of thousands of quality-adjusted life years lost. Combined models of morbidity and mortality incorporating a range of tobacco consumption levels are required to best represent the impact of tobacco use. Supported by a Grant 11RT-0243 from the Californian Tobacco Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP)     

Valuing publicly sponsored research projects: Risks,scenario adjustments,and inattention

Survey-based choice scenarios used to value non-market public goods typically preclude any risk that the benefits described may not be delivered. Our survey specifies explicit risks of (a) outright program failure and (b) program redundancy due to possible private sector substitutes. Additionally, most analyses assume that survey subjects fully accept these scenarios and that all provided information receives their complete attention. Our discounted expected utility model of choice accommodates both these objective risks and the possibility of subjective scenario adjustment or selective inattention by respondents. We then counterfactually simulate willingness-to-pay in the absence of these distortions.

Twelve-Step Facilitated Versus Mapping-Enhanced Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Pathological Gambling: A Controlled Study

This study examined the efficacy of two group treatments for pathological gambling, a node-link mapping-enhanced cognitive-behavioral group therapy (CBGT-mapping) and twelve-step facilitated (TSF) group treatment. Forty-nine participants meeting criteria for pathological gambling were recruited from local newspaper advertisements. These participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: TSF (n = 11), CBGT-mapping (n = 18), and Wait-List control (n = 9); 11 refused treatment prior to randomization. Outcome measures included number of DSM-IV criteria met, perception of control/self-efficacy, desire to gamble, and frequency of gambling episodes. Analyses revealed a significant treatment group × time interaction (η2_partial = .39). Specifically, the group treatments resulted in significant improvements in the dependent measures, while the Wait-List group remained relatively stable. Overall, CBGT-mapping and TSF had no significant differences on any outcome measure at follow-up assessments. Analysis of post-treatment and 6-month follow-up reveal a significant improvement in gambling outcomes (i.e., fewer DSM-IV criteria met, greater self-efficacy, and fewer gambling episodes (η2_partial = .35), with treatment gains maintained at 6 months. These results are consistent with previous research for group treatment for pathological gambling and provide support for the utility of TSF and a mapping-based CBT therapy as viable intervention for pathological gambling.     

Achievable Hierarchies In Voting Games

Previous work by Diffo Lambo and Moulen [Theory and Decision 53, 313–325 (2002)] and Felsenthal and Machover [The Measurement of Voting Power, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited (1998)], shows that all swap preserving measures of voting power are ordinally equivalent on any swap robust simple voting game. Swap preserving measures include the Banzhaf, the Shapley–Shubik and other commonly used measures of a priori voting power. In this paper, we completely characterize the achievable hierarchies for any such measure on a swap robust simple voting game. Each possible hierarchy can be induced by a weighted voting game and we provide a constructive proof of this result. In particular, the strict hierarchy is always achievable as long as there are at least five players.     

'Good Enough Parenting': parental disability and child protection

This paper presents the findings of research into Children's Court practice in Victoria (Australia) regarding child protection matters involving parental disability. The research examined Court records of hearings and considered the practices of the Court in the light of the particular needs of parents with a disability. The research found that such parents were often unrepresented and that formal Court interventions only infrequently made recommendations regarding the support, training and advice such parents needed in order to retain or regain care of their children. The anecdotal experience of parents with a disability that their capacity to care was likely to be more harshly judged than that of non-disabled parents, was supported. The research also suggested that the assumption of a nexus between parental disability and inability to care must be challenged, given the imperatives of legislation and child protection philosophy.