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In this paper Australian data are used to test the hypothesis that status inconsistency is linked with political liberalism. Status inconsistency is here defined operationally in two different ways: (1) as a score following Lenski's original procedure and (2) as specified combinations of status categories. Since for behavioral studies status inconsistency is better conceived in terms of interaction between specific status categories rather than as a generalized score, the method of regression analysis with dummy variables is used to assess the explanatory power of alternative statistical models. Although status inconsistency in general has no clear effect on voting behavior, specific types of inconsistency do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first findings of a survey carried out in Melbourne, Australia. It attempts to test hypotheses based on the embourgeoisement thesis, and its variations, in a social system with a strong equalitarian ideology and compulsory arbitration for all sections of the work force. It assesses the economic differences between white collar and blue collar workers and also the difference between these groups and a middle class group. It also compares the Australian situation with America and Britain. It finds a significant difference between blue collar and white collar income rates, total income medians and career income medians, as against the apparent near parity of the situation in Britain and America. These differences are not mitigated by wives' earnings or income from other sources. There is an almost complete dichotomy between these groups and the middle class group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social life of the primitive Australian aborigines has been a fascinating field of scientific interest and rheoretical speculation for several generations of European and American sociologists and social anthropologists. Knowledge of the native family and kinship systems and their associated esoteric totemic rites, for example, stimulated such social theorists as Emile Durkheim and Lewis H. Morgan. The present article is an attempt to present some results of investigations done in Australia. Special emphasis is given to the several typical forms of kinship found in Australia and the principles underlying the organization of the immediate family and larger kinship structures. A somewhat different method of kinship analysis, which applies not only to Australian but to any other systems, is used in an effort to remove the strangeness and complexity from the minds of those, who have not specialized in this field of family research. The kinship terms are always designating instruments organized around the individual who places his various kin by the use of them, and by so doing, also socially places himself as the designator. In other words, Ego anchored in his immediate family, looks out at his kinship world and places all the kindred in relation to himself by means of his kinship terms and in so doing also socially orientates himself.

The comparative method can be a powerful instrument in understanding the complex relationship of institutions and human behavior. This article describes an attempt to apply this method to the study of labor markets. The authors compare the sources and areas of recruitment for different occupational groups in Perth, Australia with those observed in the San Francisco Bay Area by F. Theodore Malm ind reported on in the July 1954 issue of this Review. The results reported in this article refer, however, only to the two areas chosen for comparison. While Perth may be typical of Australian urban labor markets generally, because of the peculiarities of the San Francisco Bay Area—for example, the high degree of unionization and relatively small size of employing units—the results cannot be taken as necessarily representative of differences in recruiting patterns elsewhere in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determination of wages in Australia through a system of industrial arbitration has had significant economic and social consequences, unforeseen by the initiators of the system, whose principal objective in its establishment was reduction of industrial strife, This article discusses some of the effects of wage arbitration on the Australian economy and suggests that in view of the widespread economic and social consequences of arbitration, its rote in the functioning of the economy should be reviewed for the purpose of integrating wage policy more closely with other aspects of the nation's economic program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incidence and patterning of divorce in Australia differs substantially from that in the United States: Australians resort to divorce less frequently than do Americans, and generally only after a much longer duration of marriage, it is suggested that this arises from differences between the two countries in (1) the availability of divorce (in both existential and normative senses), (2) the availability of alternative "remedies" for marital disharmony, and (3) the extent of marital disharmony itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In "The Old-New Distinction and Immigrants in Australia," Stanley Lieberson's interpretation of Australian immigration statistics is open to serious question. Contrary to his premise, the Australian immigration experience does not provide appropriate data for evaluating the old-new differentiation of immigrant behavior in American history. The Australian statistics do not support Lieberson's assertion that "northwestern and southeastern European immigrant patterns of adaptation and assimilation will be similar whenever the groups are established in the society at a comparable period." The emergence of the old-new classification of immigrants in America, as Lieberson pointed out, owed much to the change in the composition of immigrants around the turn of the century. The admission into Australia since World War II of immigrants born in southern, central, and eastern European countries differed considerably and fundamentally from the previous influx of "new" immigrants into the U.S. In the case of displaced persons, the Australian government established stringent criteria for admission. The number and monthly rate of admissions of the immigrants were specified as were their age, marital status, dependent status, employability, and "security" and health conditions.

First, it should be noted that various services for immigrants, such as English language training, citizenship programs, welfare agencies, and the like, were available for newcomers to the U.S.. But, granted that the lot of the new immigrant to the U.S. in earlier periods was harsher than that of contemporary migrants to Australia, the point remains that the immigrants are subject to a constant set of conditions, i.e., Australia and the services it provides. If northwestern Europeans did possess a greater propensity to as similar and adopt than other European immigrants, then the superior social facilities. Australia should in no way prevent them from showing more favorable rates relative to south eastern European immigrants. One critical issue raised is that immigration was rigidly controlled by the Australian government. Ignoring the fact that all sorts of undesirable Europeans were excluded by the U S. beginning with the immigration law of 1882, the marital status, dependent status, employability, and security and health conditions of immigrants to Australia were rigorously specified.