Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Research Publications

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    Introducing 'Journeys Home'
    Wooden, MP ; Bevitt, AJ ; Chigavazira, AT ; Greer, N ; Johnson, G ; Killackey, EJ ; Moschion, J ; Scutella, R ; Tseng, Y ; Watson, N (Blackwell Publishing Inc., 2012)
    Homelessness, despite being a major social policy issue in Australia, is an area that is not well served by data. Most sorely lacking is any large-scale panel study that follows a broad sample of persons with recent experience of homelessness and unstable housing histories. In 2010, the Australian Government set about rectifying this deficiency when it commissioned the Melbourne Institute to undertake a new panel study, now known as ‘Journeys Home’. This study draws its sample from the population of Centrelink income-support recipients, targeting persons identified in the administrative data as having recent experience of homelessness, as well as others with similar characteristics who may be vulnerable to housing difficulties in the future. This article summarises the design of this new study and reports on fieldwork outcomes from the first two waves of data collection.
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    The effects of household joblessness on mental health
    Scutella, R ; Wooden, M (PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2008-07)
    It is widely assumed that the economic and social costs that unemployment gives rise to must be exacerbated where joblessness is concentrated within families. This hypothesis is tested in this paper. Specifically, data from the first five waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA), a nationally representative household panel survey administered in Australia, are used to test whether jobless individuals score worse on a measure of mental health when they live in households with other jobless people. Consistent with previous research, unemployment is found to be associated with lower levels of mental health. No evidence, however, can be found for any additional disadvantage to the unemployed stemming from living in a jobless household.