Social Security in Australia and New Zealand: Means-tested or Just Mean?

The social security systems of Australia and New Zealand have traditionally rejected social insurance in favour of a means-tested categorical safety net approach that provides considerable scope for targeting. The experience of both countries provides many examples of how targeting can be used to constrain social security spending, and these have attracted interest in other countries keen to contain the growth in their social security budgets. However, although there are many similarities between the two systems, there are also many differences and these have become greater as targeting has gathered momentum over the last two decades. This paper analyses how targeting has been used in each country as a way of illustrating the different approaches adopted. Attention is focused on how the retirement income systems of the two countries illustrate an increasing policy divergence, with the planned Australian transition to a "multi-pillar" approach in contrast to the constant (and continuing) reform of New Zealand superannuation. Household data on the pattern of receipt of transfer incomes and their impact on the distribution of income are then used to explore the impact of targeting since the early 1980s. This analysis suggests that, in practice, targeting has had a far smaller impact on income inequality in both countries than is often claimed.     

Deprivation and the well-being of children and young people in Taiwan

This article draws on data from the second wave of the Taiwan Panel Study of Children and Youth survey to explore the relationship between deprivation and subjective well-being among children and young people in Taiwan using a child-centric approach. The survey data allows the deprivation status of disadvantaged children and young people to be identified using information that they themselves have provided. The results indicate that item-specific deprivation rates and the overall intensity of deprivation are generally higher among children. Further analysis reveals that deprivation is associated with lower levels of subjective well-being and poorer educational outcomes among both groups.     

EXPOSURE TO MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY IN MEDICAL SCHOOL: A STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

Most marital and family therapists, both medically and nonmedically trained, regularly interact with physicians on a professional basis. Though some physicians receive specific training in marital and family therapy in their postgraduate residency programs, (notably those in psychiatry and family medicine), for many, the only academic exposure they receive to this field comes during a 6- to 10-week clinical clerkship in psychiatry during their third or fourth year of medical school. No study could be located which examined marital and family therapy training in undergraduate medical education. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the level of marital and family therapy training in medical school and to provide information concerning physicians who are not family therapists, and how much knowledge about the field they can be expected to have.     

Combinatorial analysis for route first-cluster second vehicle routing

Two Route first-cluster second vehicle routing algorithms are contrasted in the first section of the paper. Next, the ‘large’ number of feasible solutions to a multiple travelling salesman problem is established given that each salesman can visit any number of customers in a stated range. An approximate expression is given for the ‘small’ fraction of this solution space searched by a route first-cluster second vehicle routing heuristic. Nevertheless, this heuristic is seen to be a very efficient means of searching its solution space.     

An Agenda for Social Security in the Years Ahead

This paper focuses on recent debates on social welfare spending in Australia, and on social security in particular. Its starting point is the current economic climate and the perceived imperative for continued fiscal restraint. Its central argument is that the welfare debate must be placed firmly in the context of the role of the public sector as a whole. In the social welfare context, government interventions through direct expenditures and tax expenditures must be assessed together, along with the impact of the tax structure on revenue raising potential. The paper questions the virtue of increased reliance on selectivity and presents the case for a more universalist approach.     

东亚地区粮食安全问题的讨论

针对东亚地区人口、耕地的情况,作者对中国二十二世纪粮食生产和粮食安全提出了与莱斯特·布朗相反的结论,分析了中国粮食生产的历史状况,指出中国在二十一世纪实现粮食自给是可能的。中国政府必须采取合适的农业政策,包括对农业物质投入和对科研的支持、培育国内农产品市场、取消省级或地方政府对农产品进出本地区的限制,使农民了解国际农产品市场等,肯定了中国在二十一世纪不会进口大量粮食,不会冲击国际粮食市场。