From journal articles to Quick Guides and webinars, you will find tools and information to support.
The UNSW Social Policy Research Centre has revealed how much Australians need to earn in order to enjoy a healthy standard of living. Among other findings, the report shows that The Newstart Allowance received by people looking for work falls below the minimum income required to achieve a basic standard of living. The largest single cost to families was identified as housing, which in all family types exceeded the 30 per cent benchmark that identifies families facing housing stress.
This eighth annual Rental Affordability Snapshot by Anglicare Australia highlights the lived experience of people and families on low incomes trying to find a home in the private rental market. The report surveyed over 67,000 properties across Australia in regional and metropolitan areas and found that only 239 homes were affordable for a single parent with one child on Newstart and eight were affordable for a single person in a property or share house on Youth Allowance.
Using two nationally representative data sets, this study compares the early life experiences of kindergarteners in 1998 and 2010 in the United States. The study finds that young children in the 2010 cohort were exposed to more books and reading in the home, have more access to educational games on computers, and engage more with their parents, both inside and outside of the home, than the 1990 cohort. This is true for both lower-income and higher-income families.
A report by the London School of Economics provides an update to Does Money Affect Children’s Outcomes? A Systematic Review (2013). It provides further supporting evidence that money in itself is important for children’s cognitive development, physical health and educational achievement, distinct from other factors such as parental education. The authors found that poorer children have worse outcomes in part because they are poor and not only because of other factors that are associated with low income. The study found that reducing income poverty and inequality is likely to have a significant impact on children’s environment and on their development.
The Brotherhood of St Laurence has published an analysis of youth employment trends in Australia, which uncovers some concerning statistics. Youth underemployment is now the highest it has been since 1978 when the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) first started collecting the data, reaching 18 per cent in early 2017. The report shows that 650,000 young people in total were unemployed or underemployed in February 2017.
This report presents a national summary of the results of the 2016 National Social Housing Survey (NSHS). It reports findings from public housing, community housing and state-owned and -managed Indigenous housing tenants. The report shows that the majority of tenants are satisfied with the services provided to them, with community housing tenants the most satisfied. Tenants report a range of benefits from living in social housing and the majority believe that they are living in homes of an acceptable standard.
Economic abuse is a form of domestic violence that has a significant impact on the health and financial wellbeing of victims. However, economic abuse between intimate partners remains a largely under-researched topic in Australia. This study aims to provide a national picture of the prevalence of economic abuse within the general population by determining the prevalence by age and gender, and identifying associated risk factors. The study found financial stress and disability to be significant indicators of economic abuse in the home.
Child maltreatment is a significant social welfare problem. This study examines the links between child maltreatment and adult socioeconomic outcomes, and uncovers the range of overlapping and compounding factors that influence outcomes in later life.
