Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Research Publications
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ItemEssential work and emergency childcare: identifying gender differences in COVID-19 effects on labour demand and supply(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2022)We examine whether the COVID-19 crisis affects women and men differently in terms of employment, working hours, and hourly wages, and whether the effects are demand or supply driven. COVID-19 impacts are studied using administrative data on all Dutch employees up to December 2020, focussing on the national lockdowns and emergency childcare for essential workers in the Netherlands. First, the impact of COVID-19 is much larger for non-essential workers than for essential workers. Although female non-essential workers are more affected than male non-essential workers, on average, women and men are equally affected, because more women than men are essential workers. Second, the impact for partnered essential workers with young children, both men and women, is not larger than for others. Third, single-parent essential workers respond with relatively large reductions in labour supply, suggesting emergency childcare was insufficient for them. Overall, labour demand effects appear larger than labour supply effects.
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ItemThe Impact of Paid Parental Leave on Labor Supply and Employment Outcomes in Australia(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2020-03-19)The introduction of the Australian Paid Parental Leave scheme in 2011 provides a rare opportunity to estimate the impacts of publicly funded paid leave on mothers in the first year postpartum. The almost universal coverage of the scheme, coupled with detailed survey data collected specifically for the scheme’s evaluation, means that eligibility for paid leave under the scheme can be plausibly taken as exogenous, following a standard propensity score-matching exercise. Consistent with much of the existing literature, the study finds a positive impact on mothers’ taking leave in the first half year and on mothers’ probability of returning to work in the first year. The paper provides new evidence of a positive impact on continuing in the same job under the same conditions, where previous conclusions have been mixed. Further, it shows that disadvantaged mothers – low income, less educated, without access to employer-funded leave – respond most.
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ItemFuture Directions: Study Protocol for an Effectiveness-Implementation Hybrid Evaluation of a State-based Social Housing Strategy and Three Social Housing Programs(Edinburgh University Library, 2021)Background: In the Australian state of New South Wales nearly 60,000 approved applicants are waiting for social housing. Future Directions for Social Housing is a response to this challenge. This collection of housing programs aims to provide more social housing, support and incentives for leaving social housing and a better social housing experience. This document presents the protocol of the evaluation of these programs and the overarching Future Directions Strategy. Methods/Design: The evaluation will use a Type 1 effectiveness-implementation hybrid design, with an integrated, dual focus on assessing the effectiveness of Future Directions and better understanding the context for reform implementation. Program effectiveness will be examined using quasi-experimental techniques applied to linked administrative data. The implementation context will be examined via program level data, qualitative interviews and focus groups with stakeholders and tenants. Some quantitative survey and administrative data will also be used. Findings from the implementation evaluation will be used to inform and interpret the effectiveness evaluation. Economic evaluations will also be conducted. Discussion: This methodology will produce a high-quality evaluation of a large, complex government program which aims to facilitate rapid translational gains, real-time adoption of effective implementation strategies and generate actionable insights for policymaker
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ItemAustralian Children Growing Up with Opportunity(WILEY, 2017-09-01)This article focuses on the early years of children in Australia. It discusses the inequality of opportunity as reflected in the statistics and the potential impacts of this inequality. A brief literature review is provided regarding the impact of formal childcare and preschool attendance on child development, with a specific focus on the impact for children from disadvantaged families. The article concludes with a discussion of possible policy directions to counteract the inequality of opportunity.
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ItemGender Equality and Health in High-Income Countries: A Systematic Review of Within-Country Indicators of Gender Equality in Relation to Health Outcomes.(Mary Ann Liebert, 2021)Background: Gender equality is recognized as an important political, social, and economic goal in many countries around the world. At a country level, there is evidence that gender equality may have an important influence on health. Historically gender equality has mainly been measured to allow for between-country, rather than within-country comparisons; and the association between gender equality and health outcomes within countries has been under-researched. This article thus aimed to systematically review within-country indicators of gender equality in public health studies and assess the extent to which these are related to health outcomes. Materials and Methods: We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach with two independent reviewers. Results: Data from the eight included studies revealed that there was heterogeneity in the way gender equality has been measured as a multidimensional construct. Associations between gender equality and a number of different health outcomes were apparent, including mortality, mental health, morbidity, alcohol consumption, and intimate partner violence, with gender equality mostly associated with better health outcomes. Conclusions: Further investigation into the effects of gender equality on health outcomes, including a clear conceptualization of terms, is critical for the development of policies and programs regarding gender equality.
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ItemWage Growth Distribution and Changes over Time: 2001-2018(Wiley, 2021-03-01)We explore how much wage growth varies among Australian employees and how it has changed over the 2001– 2018 period. The results show that, after increasing between 2002 and 2007, wage growth significantly slowed post 2008, and particularly from 2013 onwards, returning to early 2000s levels. Employee age, education, employment contract, occupation and industry explain a large share of differences in wage growth between individuals. Employee occupation is more important post-2008 than pre-2008, whereas education is more important pre-2008. Finally, casual employees receive a wage growth premium during periods of economic up-turn and a penalty during downturn.
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ItemRegional Coronavirus Hotspots During the COVID-19 Outbreak in the Netherlands(SPRINGER, 2021-04-21)We explore the impact of COVID-19 hotspots and regional lockdowns on the Dutch labour market during the outbreak of COVID-19. Using weekly administrative panel microdata for 50 per cent of Dutch employees until the end of March 2020, we study whether individual labour market outcomes, as measured by employment, working hours and hourly wages, were more strongly affected in provinces where COVID-19 confirmed cases, hospitalizations and mortality were relatively high. The evidence suggests that labour market outcomes were negatively affected in all regions and local higher virus case numbers did not reinforce this decline. This suggests that preventive health measures should be at the regional level, isolating hotspots from low-risk areas.
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ItemThe role of financial factors in the mobility and location choices of General Practitioners in Australia(BioMed Central, 2019-05-24)Background The geographic distribution of health workers is a pervasive policy concern. Many governments are responding by introducing financial incentives to attract health care workers to locate in areas that are underserved. However, clear evidence of the effectiveness of such financial incentives is lacking. Methods This paper examines General Practitioners’ (GPs) relocation choices in Australia and proposes a dynamic location choice model accounting for both source and destination factors associated with a choice to relocate, thereby accounting for push and pull factors associated with job separation. The model is used to simulate financial incentive policies and assess potential for such policies to redistribute GPs. This paper examines the role of financial factors in relocating established GPs into neighbourhoods with relatively low socioeconomic status. The paper uses a discrete choice model and panel data on GPs’ actual changes in location from one year to the next. Results This paper finds that established GPs are not very mobile, even when a financial incentive is offered. Policy simulation predicts that 93.2% of GPs would remain at their current practice and that an additional 0.8% would be retained or would relocate in a low-socioeconomic status (SES) neighbourhood in response to a hypothetical financial incentive of a 10% increase in the earnings of all metropolitan GPs practising in low-SES neighbourhoods. Conclusion With current evidence on the effectiveness of redistribution programmes limited to newly entering GPs, the policy simulations in this paper provide an insight into the potential effectiveness of financial incentives as a redistribution policy targeting the entire GP population. Overall, the results suggest that financial considerations are part of many factors influencing the location choice of GPs. For instance, GP practice ownership played almost as important a role in mobility as earnings.
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ItemChildcare Use and Its Role in Indigenous Child Development: Evidence from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children in Australia(Wiley, 2019-03-01)We investigate patterns of childcare use and its influence on the cognitive development of Indigenous children. The influence of childcare on Indigenous children's cognitive outcomes is less well understood than for non-Indigenous children due to a lack of appropriate data. We focus on a cohort of Indigenous children in Australia who have been followed from infancy and for whom rich information on childcare use and cognitive outcomes is observed. Compared to Indigenous children who never participated in childcare, Indigenous children who participated in childcare performed better on several early cognitive outcomes. Using regression and propensity score matching, we show that this difference is driven by selection into childcare, with children from more advantaged families being more likely to attend formal childcare. However, matching analysis results suggest that relatively disadvantaged children might benefit more from attending childcare, as indicated by the positive estimated effects found for those who never attended childcare.