This paper draws on evidence from various Australian data sources to offer a descriptive analysis of recent trends in employment participation and superannuation outcomes of males and females. The paper has three aims. The first is to review recent policy developments in terms of their likely effect on the gender gap in superannuation balances. The second is to consider the effects of COVID-19 on the gender gap in balances and, the third is to consider future policy directions and research needs. Preliminary evidence suggests that the gender gap in balances amongst young males and females may have widened as a result of COVID-19 policy responses. The research also highlights the need for regular, systematic and comprehensive reporting of superannuation data detailing coverage, contributions and balances with the data disaggregated by gender and age.
This paper presents a discussion on economic incentives and social norms that have contributed to the changing participation of women in the Australian labour market. While that participation continues to increase there is still more that can be done to improve equality and equity in the workforce that will contribute to national productivity and income. COVID-19 offers the opportunity of looking freshly at changing social norms and our economic policies to maintain and reward the participation of women in the labour market. Australia as a nation will be better off and families and children likewise.
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian Government dramatically changed its approach to social security by introducing a temporary $550 per fortnight Coronavirus Supplement and the temporary suspension of mutual obligations. In late October 2020, we launched an online survey that asked respondents about how these changes impacted on their everyday lives and time use. Our findings suggest that the suspension of mutual obligations was extremely positive for respondents especially because it reduced the psychological and time pressure which make it harder for respondents to undertake long-term planning and preparation for employment. There were also considerable gendered impacts including how the reduction in time and psychological pressure allowed respondents to engage in their unpaid work such as looking after children and community engagement. Furthermore, our findings suggest that people placed onto mutual obligations undertake a range of productive work which provides important inputs into the economy and society more broadly despite being considered to be unproductive members of society. Respondents indicated that this work is easier to do when they had the time and economic base to do so, suggesting that a rethink of contemporary social security policy is needed.
We study the relationship between COVID-19 lockdowns and domestic assaults in New South Wales and Victoria using police data on crime by Local Government Area over the period 2019-2020. We apply both Ordinary Least Squares and a fixed effect estimator, and find that domestic assaults decline during the lockdowns of 2020, but less than other types of assaults. As a result, there is a higher relative incidence of domestic assaults rather than an overall increase in crime. The results are robust to omitted variable bias based on Osters (2019) test, and mimic Boman and Gallupe (2020) - a similar study carried out in the US.
This study provides new and detailed estimates of gender segregation in the Australian labour market. Using ABS Labour Force Survey and Census data, we explore and decompose long-term trends of segregation and integration by employing a shiftshare analysis and index measures across time, age and space. We find that over the last three decades, gender segregation has not significantly changed across either industries or occupations. Gender segregation across industries is, in general, more resistant to gender integration than across occupations and detailed classifications are profoundly more segregated than top-level classifications. Additionally, gender segregation increases as individuals get older and the farther they work from urbanised locations. We show that decades of gender equality policy have not had a major impact on minimising labour market segregation. Women continue to have more constrained labour supply choices than men, hindering labour market efficiency and flexibility.
Women's lack of confidence is commonly regarded as a key reason why women lag behind men's career outcomes. This paper interrogates this claim by examining the empirical link between an individual's confidence and job promotion prospects through a gender lens. We use nationally-representative data for 7533 individuals collected in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey in 2013. Confidence is captured by a psychometric survey instrument, Achievement Motivation, which is dually comprised of 'hope for success' and 'fear of failure'. Using Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we detect that higher hope for success is linked to a higher likelihood of job promotion, but only amongst men. This finding provides no evidence to support the widespread advice commonly given to women that they need to 'lean in' and show more confidence as the mechanism to close gender gaps in the workplace.
A method is developed for measuring the intensity with which skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are used in different occupations based on workers' field of qualification and weighted by the wage premium associated with their level of qualification. This is used to model changes in demand for STEM skills, and in other fields, based on the changing occupational composition of employment in Australia between the 2006 and 2016 censuses, and on projected changes to 2024. The approach offers a number of advantages over previous measures used to define STEM workers. Most importantly, by generating a continuous measure of STEM intensity rather than a binary STEM versus non-STEM definition, it incorporates [vocational education and training] VET qualifications rather than just university level qualifications, and allows for transferability of STEM skills to what might be considered 'non-STEM' jobs.
The economic shock and government response to COVID-19 highlight weaknesses in Australia's tax system COVID-19 puts pressure on a system under strain from long-term structural forces and the tax-free and tax-reduced status of certain sources of income Returning to a sound structural budget position cannot be accomplished through passive action that relies on 'natural' revenue growth from current tax sources Discussions should focus on comprehensive reform Reducing reliance on income (particularly labour) taxes and applying a more equal tax treatment to different individuals and income sources over time are priorities which will support improved well-being and labour market activity
The Australian JobKeeper wage subsidy is an unprecedented public policy response to a once in a century health and economic crisis induced by the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of this paper is on the efficacy of the Australian JobKeeper program design, including how well it meets its overall objective of retaining employer-employee matches; how well it is targeted relative to the needs of both businesses and workers; and the adequacy of JobKeeper as a wage replacement scheme. We consider both the original JobKeeper design, JobKeeper 2.0 and a series of alternative wage subsidy designs that we believe would more effectively target both employers and workers, incentivise a reallocation of labour and support a faster economic recovery.
In June 2020 the Minister for Education, Dan Tehan announced the Job-ready Graduate Package which aimed to provide the price signals the Coalition Government believes are necessary to generate the skills required in the Australian labour market in the post-COVID-19 world This paper uses existing evidence to argue that the proposed Job-ready Graduate Package is likely to miss its mark, crucially with respect to having a medium-term impact on student choice The paper draws on evidence of employment patterns of new graduates and established graduates in the Australian labour market to assess the economic argument that certain degree disciplines are more 'job ready' than others;the rationale behind 'picking winners' and the economic case for the proposed funding structure The evidence from previous changes in the HECS/HELP rates, which were not as large as the proposed ones, suggests that they are unlikely to have a significant effect on student choices This is not surprising given the wide range of factors that influence choice of discipline including student preferences, educational background, the employment and income of existing graduates, socio-economic background, career guidance and school experience, occupational expectations, psychological attributes and university entrance scores The idea of 'picking winners' among disciplines for study to generate 'job-ready' graduates faces many difficulties in the uncertain post-COVID-19 world against a background of long-term changes in the economic structure of the economy Working lives can last for over 40 years and people can move between occupations, adapting skills and retraining over time Individuals are best placed to make these choices for themselves rather than relying on government direction
We propose a reweighting-estimation-transformation (RWET) approach to estimate the impacts of COVID-19 on job postings in Australia. Contrary to the commonly used aggregation-based method on counting data, our approach can be used in a relatively 'thin' market, such as Australia. In a thin market, the number of job postings is relatively small, and the share of empty cells increases substantially when aggregating the data into finer categories. Using Australian job postings collected by Burning Glass Technologies and the RWET approach, our empirical evidence shows that the overall labour demand in Australia as of July 2020 is slowly recovering from its lowest 45 per cent dip at the beginning of May. Our results also suggest that the impacts of the pandemic are relatively evenly distributed across skill levels, but vary substantially across states, industries and occupations. Our findings of the dynamics on the demand side of the labour market suggest that skill-targeted policies might not be as effective as policies targeted at the state and industry levels to facilitate economic recovery.
A significant difference exists between the rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous business ownership in Australia. This paper attempts to understand the factors that may affect the likelihood of Indigenous Australians being in business compared to non-Indigenous Australians. We use a probit cross-sectional estimation on a close to 5 per cent sample of the Australian population from the 2016 Census to assess the factors that are associated with a higher probability of being in business for four groups: Indigenous men and women and non-Indigenous men and women. The results show that once accounting for other socioeconomic and demographic factors, identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in the Census explains a sizeable difference between the rates of business ownership. The results suggest a discriminatory barrier – either from external sources and/or internal to Indigenous communities – may affect the likelihood of being in business for many entrepreneurial Indigenous Australians. The paper also looks at the correlation between business ownership and education, home ownership, access to networks, age, disability, marital status and geography.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) suggests significant transformation of the Australian economy with predictions of ‘technological unemployment’. Combined with other significant economic, demographic and social shifts, it is inevitable that future of work will change. This paper applies industrial revolution scholarship to contribute new empirical insights into the transformation of Australia’s economy between 2006 and 2016 and evaluate Australia’s progress in the 4IR. The paper also introduces gender as a largely missing component in industrial revolution scholarship. Adapting the shift-share method of analysis to ABS Census data, the paper attributes the change in the share of employment and industry restructure over the decade to four factors: national economic growth, industry (re)structure, employment composition, and within industry employment composition. The paper finds that while job growth occurred in the decade to 2016, it was largely driven by a national growth effect associated with increasing consumption and the industry effect associated with the rise of the services sectors and the changing social organisation of care, rather than innovation and technological advancements. Job destruction, on the other hand, is evident in industry sectors associated with the 4IR; the replacement of jobs by automation and artificial intelligence to increase competitiveness and productivity. To transition to the phase of job creation in an industrial revolution, Australia needs socio-political intervention to address four key issues.
Australia has seen an increase in labour market inequality over recent decades. One driver for this is skill bias in the demand for labour. Another points to the casualisation of employment in Australia and to polarisation of job creation and earnings. To understand these, we conduct a simple analysis by applying data on occupational types, namely, full-time and part-time ‘casual’ and ‘permanent’ employment. The findings show polarisation in the labour market. This phenomenon occurs when the labour market experiences an increase in the share of high-paid jobs with decent working conditions, an increase in jobs with poor pay and working conditions, with an accompanying decrease in the share of jobs in the middle of the employment distribution. This outcome, we believe, is accentuated by a process of casualisation of employment. These processes may lead to a different dimension of inequality occurring in the Australian labour market, requiring new government policies to slow such trends.
This article examines the gender wage gap in the formal public and private sectors in Bangladesh. The traditional Oaxaca method focuses on the explained and unexplained part of the wage gap; in this paper we use the Olsen and Walby (2004) simulation method which emphasises only the explained part of the wage gap. Using the Bangladesh Labour Force Survey 2005-2006, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics data show formal-sector female employees earned about 32.1 per cent less than their male counterparts (2008). Using the Olsen and Walby (2004) simulation method for the first time in the Bangladeshi context, the results reported here show that age and educational differences and industrial and occupational segregation played important roles in explaining the gender pay gap in Bangladesh. However, being female’ was also an important determinant of lower female earnings. These results show the importance of policies to boost female education and training in Bangladesh. They also indicate the need for policies to promote female participation in the formal-sector workforce, including improvements in childcare and transport availability.
In Australia, it has been debated whether the Fair Work Act (FWA) has a negative or positive impact on productivity growth. Likewise, in New Zealand, there has also been considerable interest and debate about that country's so-called 'productivity paradox', though this has yet to be linked to employment relations legislation in recent debates. This is surprising since it has been an explicit aim to raise productivity growth of the two last employment relations reforms. This paper will focus on how employment relations has been supposed to impact on productivity growth during the Employment Contracts Act 1991 and the Employment Relations Act 2000 periods. It will discuss why employment relations reforms have yet to shift the productivity growth and explanations of the 'productivity paradox' so far. This includes how employer attitudes and behaviours may be part of the productivity 'paradox' as well as a brief overview of the research and approaches of the Productivity Commission. The paper suggests that, while employment relations can play a part in lifting productivity levels, what is crucial are contextual factors and how employment relations and other policies combine to reinforce each other.
A concern that low job security is constraining wage growth has been expressed in many countries. In this paper, we use Australian household panel data to analyse the drivers of self-assessed job security and its relationship with wage growth. We construct measures of industry-level trade exposure and occupation-based automation risk to assess the conjecture that technological change and globalisation are leading to fears of job loss. We find that those in jobs with a higher trade exposure or automation risk or those working on a casual or fixed-term contract feel more insecure in their job. However, regardless of one’s characteristics, there has been a broad-based fall in job security in recent years that cannot be explained by the model variables. Exploiting the panel dimension of the survey, we find that heightened job insecurity has been a statistically significant but small drag on wage growth. This result is robust to various model specifications.
This study updates and extends prior economics research on the compensation of college and university presidents by examining a 13-year panel containing data on the total compensation packages of private college and university presidents in the U.S. Our econometric approach is the first to include president-level information on both gender and race in order to draw inferences about both the male-female and white-black pay gaps (favoring males and whites, respectively) in higher education administration. Results from both OLS and fixed-effects estimations suggest that white female presidents are paid significantly less than their white male counterparts, although this difference, which ranges from six to 9.8 per cent, is sensitive to the racial makeup of the student body of the institution to which a president is affiliated. Secondarily, we also find that non-white male residents earn more than their white male counterparts. This gap is also sensitive, although to a lesser degree, to the racial makeup of the student body of the institution to which a president is affiliated.
