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There is an emerging global recognition of the inadequacies of conventional socio-economic and demographic data in being able to reflect the relative wellbeing of Indigenous peoples. This paper emerges out of a recent desktop study commissioned by an Australian Indigenous organization who identified a need to enhance local literacies in data collection and interpretation in order to monitor the wellbeing of the Indigenous people within their region, manage governments in respect of their civic responsibilities to this population, and proactively and imaginatively plan for the future of the Indigenous people in their region. In canvassing available data and the growing Indigenous wellbeing literature, it became apparent that conventional statistical collections used to report on the status of populations are governed by a series of assumptions regarding three related concepts: wellbeing; demography; and economic productivity and prosperity. These assumptions have direct implications for how Indigenous peoples are represented to governments and broader society. The paper draws together the existing threads of literature regarding Indigenous wellbeing research to posit a possible broader framework for organising various kinds of Indigenous wellbeing analyses. In doing so, it identifies important shortcomings and deficits in the kinds of data that are available to Indigenous peoples in presenting themselves and their aspirations to governments with. It also opens up a critical analysis of the opportunities and obstacles for Indigenous communities in undertaking such research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing support from international organizations and the research community for stepping beyond infant or child mortality as the most common child level social indicator and progressing towards an international measure of child development. The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a teacher-completed measure of children's developmental health at school entry, which to date has been used in more than a dozen countries. The EDI includes five developmental domains (Physical Health and Well-being, Social Competence, Emotional Maturity, Language and Cognitive Development and Communication Skills and General Knowledge) and 16 subdomains. This paper examines the EDI's psychometric properties in four English-speaking countries (Canada, Australia, United States and Jamaica) by evaluating both the internal consistency and factor structures, as well as exploring the association between the EDI's Language and Cognitive Development Domain and a direct assessment of children's receptive vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, PPVT). Overall, the factor loadings and internal consistencies of domains and subdomains were similar across the countries. The comparisons of the Language and Cognitive Development Domain with the PPVT showed high specificity and low sensitivity. The results of this paper indicate that the EDI, a measure of children's developmental status at school entry, demonstrates similar psychometric properties in a number of countries, thus building the evidence for the instrument to be added to the limited array of internationally comparable child social indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resource-infrastructure-environment (RIE) index was proposed as an alternative measure of progress which was then employed to: (1) compare the aggregate (single summary) index findings between Australia (mid-industrialised nation), Mexico (emerging economy), and the US (highly industrialised nation); and (2) compare the RIE index against the gross domestic product (GDP), human development index (HDI) and genuine savings (GS) measure. This paper builds on the previous work by assessing the seven themes and 21 dimensions which comprise the RIE index for the three aforementioned nations, as well as the associated policy implications. The results identified Australia's strength in the human resource and infrastructure themes. For Mexico, strong contributions came from the natural and generated resource themes as well as the physical environment theme, while the US performed strongly in the infrastructure themes. The comparative results of the US and Mexico illustrated that it is possible to achieve high levels of progress without an excessive reliance on high levels of production and income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses household economic panel data from five countries—Australia, Britain, Germany, Hungary and The Netherlands—to provide a reassessment of the impact of economic well-being on happiness. The main conclusion is that happiness is considerably more affected by economic circumstances than previously believed. In all five countries wealth affects life satisfaction more than income. In the countries for which consumption data are available (Britain and Hungary), non-durable consumption expenditures also prove at least as important to happiness as income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of children's development and parents' wellbeing have not dealt effectively with the complexity of multiple disadvantage. Traditional approaches have typically used a limited set of outcomes and predictors. Even studies utilizing multiple risk factors have often treated these as confounders, adjusting for their influence, while concentrating on a primary association of interest. Such strategies do not illuminate the real world essence of disadvantage, i.e. that adversities co-occur more than expected by chance and that multiple disadvantage is common. The main aim of the present paper is to address this neglected topic and develop summary measures of adversity using the 2004-2005 data from Wave 1 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Information was obtained from families of 5,107 babies (0-1 years) and families of 4,983 children (4-5 years). The prevalence of multiple disadvantage among families with young children and the degree to which summary adversity measures are associated with each other and with family and child outcomes is then estimated. Using factor analysis, 12 lower-order constructs and two higher-order components of adversity were developed, labelled (1) material and (2) psychosocial adversity. Findings show that the two component scores were more strongly associated with outcomes than were the more specific construct scores and that psychosocial adversity was somewhat more relevant to family wellbeing and child development than material adversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By almost all measures of objective life quality, Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged relative to the general population. However, no measures of their Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) have been published. This paper presents the first such data, norm-referenced to the general Australian population. A total of 519 Indigenous adolescents, aged between 12 and 19 years, were administered the Personal Wellbeing Index-School Children, which measures SWB. This scale is a parallel form of the Personal Wellbeing-Adult. The PWI-SC exhibited adequate psychometric properties. Moreover, consistent with SWB Homeostasis theory, participants' mean SWB was within the Australian adult normative range. However, female SWB was lower than males. These results suggest that Indigenous adolescents are resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the term drought is widely used, defining it is conceptually and technically difficult and there is no generally accepted definition. This article uses data from an Australian social survey of people living in agricultural areas to test the validity of using general social surveys to ask respondents whether they are living in an area that is drought affected. Strong evidence is found that the survey based self-report measure of drought is both internally consistent and correlated with the standard Australian meteorological (rainfall deficit) measures of drought and thus provides a valid measure of whether individuals are experiencing the drought. The relationship between self-report drought and the standard meteorological measure of drought and financial hardship and changes in financial position is estimated. While a negative association between drought and financial position is found for both measures, the relationship is stronger for the self-report than the meteorological definition. The self-report measure is more closely linked to the economic, social and community impacts of low rainfall and provides greater flexibility in the geographic area over which drought is measured-thus survey data about drought allows respondents to define the area in way which is meteorologically, topographically or agriculturally meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alarm about the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity has focussed attention on individual lifestyle behaviours that may contribute to unhealthy weight. Television viewing is often a focus of the obesity debate. Not only is it sedentary, it also has the potential to influence other lifestyle behaviours either by displacing physical activities or through the consumption of high energy snack foods while watching TV. The research reported here uses data from 2,143 Australian 6-7 year children to examine the lifestyle behaviours associated with excess weight. These children spent 90 min each day watching television, 100 min each day in physical activity, and 39% consumed high levels of snack foods. Nearly one in five (18%) were overweight or obese. After adjustment for family and child characteristics, more time spent watching television was associated with more snacking and less physical activity. However, television viewing was associated with children's weight status, but snacking and physical activities were not. These findings confirm the existence from a young age, of a cluster of lifestyle behaviours that are associated with unhealthy weight status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major tasks of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) following its establishment in 2000 has been to establish statistical profiles of the world’s Indigenous peoples. As part of this broad task, it has recommended that the Millennium Development Goals and other global reporting frameworks should be assessed with a view to incorporating greater recognition of Indigenous concerns, interests, and interpretations of development and well-being. This article reviews the conceptual basis for this recommendation and compares the activities of the UNPFII towards the development of appropriate indicators with the practices of the Australian government in measuring disadvantage among Indigenous peoples in that country. Indigenous peoples’ own perceptions and understandings of well-being are seen to extend beyond and sometimes conflict with conventional reporting frameworks with the latter constructed more around processes of governmentality than Indigenous priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People’s welfare is a function of both time and money. People can – and, it is said, increasingly do – suffer time-poverty as well as money-poverty. It is undeniably true that people feel increasingly time pressured, particularly in dual-earner households. But much of the time devoted to paid and unpaid tasks is over and above that which is strictly necessary. In that sense, much of the time pressure that people feel is discretionary and of their own making. Using data from the 1992 Australian Time Use Survey, this paper demonstrates that the magnitude of this ‘time-pressure illusion’ varies across population groups, being least among lone parents and greatest among the childless and two-earner couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) is being developed for the cross-cultural measurement of subjective wellbeing (SWB). This paper reports the findings of its utility with the Hong Kong Chinese and Australian populations. An item on affect, ‘satisfaction with own happiness’ was also investigated to determine whether it should be added to the index. Three-hundred and sixty participants (180 per country), with equal representation from groups aged 18–35, 35–64 and 65 years and above, were recruited from each country. The PWI demonstrated good psychometric performance in terms of its reliability, validity and sensitivity, which are comparable in both countries. The item ‘satisfaction with own happiness’ was found to contribute significantly to the scale’s psychometric performance in Australia but not in Hong Kong. Cultural differences in the perception of the concepts ‘satisfaction’ and ‘happiness’ were suggested as an explanation for this finding. The PWI data are also consistent with homeostasis theory, which proposes that each person’s SWB level is maintained within a limited positive range. For the Australian population, their mean SWB level fell within the established Western range of 70–80, on a scale from 0 to 100. The Hong Kong population, however, fell below this range. Cultural response bias was identified as a plausible explanation for the differences between the Hong Kong and Australian samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey waves 1-6, to investigate whether the housework and childcare contributions of coupled Australian men with one child affect the likelihood that their wives will have a second child. We find no evidence that the way housework or childcare is shared has an effect, nor that the amount of men's contribution to housework or childcare has an effect. In addition, the effect of men's housework and childcare time on fertility does not appear to be mediated through its effect on their wives' housework and childcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible working hours are typically seen to be advantageous to working parents, as the flexible hours more easily allow responsibilities of care and employment be balanced. But do flexible work hours actually mean that parents can spend more time with their children? This article explores this for parents of young children in Australia. The analyses use the time use diaries of children in the two cohorts of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), from the first wave of the study in 2004. The study children in each cohort were aged about one year old and 4-5 years old. For each child, a weekday and weekend diary were completed, giving 5,579 weekday diaries and 4,478 weekend diaries. The diaries captured details of the children's activities and of who they were with in each 15 min period of a day, and so allowed calculation of the total amount of time the child was with their mother and with their father. Multivariate analyses were used to determine whether amounts of mother-child and father-child time varied according to flexibility of work hours, taking account also of other job characteristics, family and child characteristics. The analyses showed that flexible work hours had only weak independent relationships with mothers' and fathers' time with children. Inasmuch as flexible hours are beneficial for parents, it appears that this is related to their ability to distribute their time between work and family time, rather than giving them more time with children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurring theme in Indigenous affairs in Australia is a tension between maintenance of Indigenous culture and achievement of socio-economic 'equity': essentially 'self-determination' versus 'assimilation'. Implicit in this tension is the view that attachment to traditional cultures and lifestyles is a hindrance to achieving 'mainstream' economic goals. Using data from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, stronger attachment to traditional culture is found to be associated with enhanced outcomes across a range of socio-economic indicators. This suggests Indigenous culture should be viewed a part of the solution to Indigenous disadvantage in Australia, and not as part of the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To identify independent correlates of reported gambling problems amongst the Indigenous population of Australia. A cross-sectional design was applied to a nationally representative sample of the Indigenous population. Estimates of reported gambling problems are presented by remoteness and jurisdiction. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify independent correlates of reported gambling problems amongst individuals and their social and family networks. The analysis was stratified by remoteness. Indigenous people living in remote locations reported significantly more gambling problems than those living in non-remote locations. In non-remote areas, being female, having high personal income, being more socially connected (i.e. involved in an Indigenous organisation or living in a household where all members were Indigenous) and reporting community problems were associated with higher levels of reported gambling problems. In remote areas, multifamily households, participation in sports and cultural events, and reporting of community problems were associated with higher reported gambling problems, while having a relative removed from their natural family was associated with lower reported problems. Problematic gambling is clearly related to the social and environmental contexts in which it occurs. Harm minimisation policies that focus on a reduction in crowding (especially in remote locations), increased public awareness of the negative consequences of gambling, improving access to support services, and lifting the socioeconomic status of Indigenous people may reduce gambling related harm in the medium to long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the social impact of the adoption of cellular telephone technology on time use in Australia. Social perceptions that cellular telephone use reduces downtime and increases the frequency of human interaction are noted. The authors designed their survey to assess whether cellular telephone use is associated with increased time pressure, whether work related cellular telephone use increased work effort, and how Australians used cellular phones in the workplace. Time management surveys were used in conjunction with telephone call logs, and time diaries. Although the research did not find that cell phone use increased feelings of time pressure, cellular telephone use in the workplace was found to correlate with job stress.

Casual employment is extensive and has been increasing for more than two decades in Australia. The concept of casual employment used in the Australian context is unusual, but it is directly linked to benefit and rights exclusion within the regulatory framework governing employment. The expansion in casual employment has spread across all sectors, industries and occupations. Casual employment is associated with various forms of insecurity including income and employment insecurity. There are a number of ways in which the insecurity associated with casual employment could be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A representative sample of undergraduate and postgraduate international students at a large Australian university ( n = 979, 64% females) completed a mail-back survey examining their perceptions of social connectedness. Four aspects of social connectedness were investigated: (1) connectedness in Melbourne, (2) social mixing and interaction with co-culturals and Australians, (3) involvement in organisations, associations and groups, and (4) connections to home and family. The majority of students report being well-connected to others in Melbourne, although some desire increased personal support from people who know and care about them. Connectedness in Melbourne is related to students’ cultural background and communication skills in the new culture and their evaluation of their perceived academic progress. Students from Asian countries reveal different patterns to other students, especially in the relationships between connectedness and interactions with co-culturals. Awareness of these and other differences among international students from varying cultural backgrounds can help target assistance in achieving a sense of well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health and social indicators that capture the distinct historical, social, and cultural contexts of Indigenous communities can play an important role in informing the planning and delivery of community interventions. There is currently considerable interest in cataloguing and vetting meaningful community-level health and social indicators that could be applied to research and health promotion activities in Indigenous communities in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, inclusive of conventional indicators as well as measures developed specifically for use in or with Indigenous communities. To avoid haphazard selection of indicators, and to assure the comprehensiveness and relevance of any given set of indicators, a framework that can accommodate and conceptually classify indicators representing a full range of domains is required. We report here on the development of a conceptual framework, by which Indigenous community indicators, and more general community-level social indicators, can be sorted, catalogued, and systematically classified within four hierarchical levels. The indicator framework was developed across Canada, Australia and New Zealand in consultation with academic researchers and Indigenous community stakeholders, building from established health and social indicator systems. The Indigenous indicator framework permits Indigenous communities, public health researchers, and funding agencies to compare and select the most appropriate indicators for application in specific contexts from the multitude of existing indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, wellbeing has been used as an assessment of how young people are doing by health researchers, youth researchers and psychologists. The concept ‚wellbeing’ is increasingly applied to young people in their late teens and early twenties with little discussion of young people’s perspectives. Using quantitative measures of subjective wellbeing as well as qualitative interviews to allow young people to discuss the concept of wellbeing, this study explored the levels and meanings of wellbeing among 91 young people (aged 16–24) from a rural center in south-east Australia. Key components of wellbeing for young people were found to include relationships, psychological dimensions and personal issues while family and ‚pressure’ impacted wellbeing. For most young people, wellbeing was multidimensional, holistic and centred around their own lives. Findings suggest that the Deiner et al. satisfaction with life scale was an appropriate measure of young people’s wellbeing but that health, sociology of youth and psychological approaches all contribute to young people’s perspectives of wellbeing and need to be incorporated into a more holistic measure of SWB for young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German and Australian longitudinal surveys analysed here are the first national representative surveys to show that (1) people who continuously own a pet are the healthiest group and (2) people who cease to have a pet or never had one are less healthy. Most previous studies which have claimed that pets confer health benefits were cross-sectional. So they were open to the objection that owners may have been healthier in the first place, rather than becoming healthier due to owning a pet. In both countries the data show that pet owners make about 15% fewer annual doctor visits than non-owners. The relationship remains statistically significant after controlling for gender, age, marital status, income and other variables associated with health. The German data come from the German Socio-Economic Panel in which respondents have been interviewed every year since 1984 ( N = 9723). Australian data come from the Australian National Social Science Survey 2001 ( N = 1246). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. How do family arrangements affect subjective well-being? We investigate this issue using data pooled from the IsssA and HILDA, both large, representative national samples of Australia (pooled n = 38 447). Our regression analysis of cross-sectional and panel data examines how large are the differences in life satisfaction according to marital status and cohabitation. We find that women and men in formal marriages experience higher levels of life satisfaction than do people in other family arrangements. Moreover, both multiple tests in the cross-section, and tests controlling for prior happiness in the panel analysis, suggest that this is a causal relationship. Aggregating up the levels of life satisfaction generated by different marriage and cohabitation arrangements across a lifetime, suggests that a life-long marriage is the most satisfying. Early divorce followed by an enduring second marriage is little worse (because little time is spent outside the married state). But divorce without remarriage, or long lasting cohabitation without formal marriage, reduce the lifetime sum of subjective well-being by 4-12% for both women and men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the development of the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index. Use of the theoretical model of subjective wellbeing homeostasis; Inclusion of the subscales of Personal and National Wellbeing; Confirmation of the integrity of the sub-scales through factor analysis.

Explores the relationship of age- and gender-specific measures of socio-economic status (SES) and health status in Australia. Factors considered in the interpretation of socio-economic findings; Correlation of age- and gender-specific SES with the physical and mental factors; Impact of family unit on the determination of SES among women and men.

Examines the feeling of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among an elite cohort of baby boom Australians. Emergence of generational conflict and cultural change; Use of pessimism and optimism to measure the level of satisfaction; Combination of objective and subjective indicators of quality of life to explore dimensions of satisfaction.

Examines the effects of gendering indicators of health and well-being on health outcomes in Australia. Contributions of gendered and differentiated understandings of health to the analysis of health and well-being measurements; Observation of inequalities in health and well-being; Application of public health policy in health and well being.

Differentiates between subjective measures of personal and social quality of life in Australia. Use of the subjective measures in evaluating the quality of life; Evidence indicating the Australians' perception of overall quality of life; Correlation between quality of life and economic growth.

Investigates the determinants and consequences of social well-being among Australian youth. Panel studies measuring well-being over a period of time; Factors affecting well-being; Significance of social indicators in evaluating well-being; Gender differences in well-being.

Describes the occupational status of Australia's indigenous population. Measurement of difference from other Australian populations; Use of 1986 Census data to calculate inter- and intra-occupational segregation; Observation of patterns of relative employment concentration and exclusions; Gender as a major differentiating factor; Comparisons of socio-economic status.

Examines scenarios of social change in industrialized societies in Australia. Considered ideas; Comparison of the 1974 Cities Commission with the Australian Bureau of Statistics Pilot Study of Time Use; Analysis of time spent on leisure, paid and unpaid work.