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This article examines the links between forced housing mobility and the mental wellbeing of Australians in an era of heightened risks in both labour and housing markets. Specifically, we examine how the links between forced housing mobility and mental wellbeing may vary according to states of employment and housing tenure insecurity. Using the 2001–2018 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, we implement hybrid models across four mental wellbeing dimensions and uncover three key findings. First, there is strong evidence that forced moves impair mental wellbeing. Second, the adverse wellbeing impacts of forced moves are greater for those experiencing employment insecurity than those in secure employment. Third, forced moves can depress the wellbeing of both owner purchasers and private renters, but the wellbeing penalty is greater in the case of the former. Overall, our analysis emphasises the importance of harnessing housing as a policy instrument for promoting wellbeing. Our findings also highlight the need for policies that mitigate loss of home ownership and reforms that improve tenure security for renters.

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 VET qualifications rather than just university level qualifications, and allows for transferability of STEM skills to what might be considered ‘non-STEM’ jobs. Contrary to popular narratives around STEM and the future of work, we find that the changing nature of work is actually reducing the demand for STEM skills relative to skills in other fields of education. Health stands out as the field in which the demand for qualifications has been growing most strongly. We also find that technical and trade jobs account for almost the same level of demand for STEM skills as professional occupations, reflecting the importance of including the VET sector in any STEM agenda. While governments have actively sought to promote ‘women in STEM’, our results suggest that, if anything, women are benefitting in terms of the demand for their skills by the fact that they are under-represented in STEM, and overrepresented in key services such as Health and Education. We caution against an uncritical acceptance of the need for a higher proportion of people to specialise in STEM fields. More explicit and testable statements of the rationales and assumptions behind STEM definitions and associated policy are needed to further advance skills forecasting and the approp

It is commonly argued that maintaining and enhancing Australia’s standard of living will require increasing the proportion of the population attaining university level qualifications in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Accordingly, governments and universities have been proactive in encouraging women, who represent only around 30 per cent of Australians with STEM qualifications, to enter STEM courses. However, recent analyses of data from the Australian Graduate Survey found that female STEM graduates had relatively poor wage and job-match outcomes upon entering the labour market. This paper presents evidence on career outcomes for women with STEM degrees in Australia from Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data and panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA). The results provide further evidence that policies to promote female participation in STEM need to be accompanied by measures to address career barriers they face in the labour market. Women who gain STEM qualifications have lower labour market participation rates, higher unemployment rates, are relatively dissatisfied with their employment opportunities and with the extent to which their skills are utilised in their jobs compared to women with other tertiary qualifications. They also face a larger wage gap relative to men with equivalent qualifications.

This article analyses the effect of employees working from home on their partners' assessments of family functioning using Australian household panel data collected from 2001 to 2013 in 48 multivariate models. Some evidence is found that working from home contributes to better relationships and a more equitable division of household responsibilities for couples with children. Limited evidence of negative externalities is observed, notably where male employees work substantial hours from home. Overall the findings contribute to the weight of evidence that working from home is conducive to families achieving a better work-life balance.

Existing estimates of the cost of children focus on what parents spend on their children, which has limited relevance to parents’ financial capacity to meet those costs. An alternative indicator of the affordability of children, their impact upon couples’ wealth accumulation, is estimated using the lifecycle model and Australian household panel data. The results suggest children have a very small impact upon wealth accumulation, seemingly at odds with the large ‘costs’ implied from expenditure-based estimates. In reconciling these highly divergent estimates we argue that the net-wealth approach is an intuitively more appealing indicator of the financial impost of children.

This study uses three wealth modules from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to explore the gender wealth gap for single Australian households between 2002 and 2010. The findings indicate a significant gender wealth gap, which has increased over the 8 years explored. Most of the increase in the wealth gap was associated with a relatively rapid increase in the value of housing assets by single men over the study period. The findings of this study challenge a wider literature that tends to emphasise that men are more prepared to invest in ‘risky’ assets such as shares and that their higher wealth is due to these investment strategies. Instead, this study emphasises how, in the Australian context at least, it was higher growth rates in the value of housing assets owned by single men that improved their wealth position relative to single women over the last decade.

There is concern that workers are finding it increasingly difficult to balance work and family life and face growing time stress. Working from home is one form of flexibility in working arrangements that may assist workers to juggle work and non-work commitments. However, it may also provide a pathway for greater intrusion of work into family life and for added work-related stress. Data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey indicates that around 17 per cent of Australian employees work some of their usual working hours from home, but there has been no increase in the incidence of employees working from home in the past decade. Overall, the ability to work some hours from home is seen by employees as a positive job attribute that provides flexibility to balance work and non-work commitments. However, working from home is also associated with long hours of work and the evidence provides grounds for concern that working from home does facilitate greater intrusion into non-work domains of life through this channel.

The labour market reforms in China resulted in a greater emphasis on labour market productivity in earnings determination. This is reflected in the rapid increase in the estimated returns to schooling between the pre-reform and post-reform periods. At the same time the importance of labour market experience, or seniority, as a determinant of earnings decreased following the implementation of the reforms. Similarly, following the labour market reforms, the role of self-assessed indicators of health in earnings determination appears to have decreased, and the role of objective indicators of health has increased. These changes have been less intense in rural areas than in urban areas. As such they suggest that the main drivers of economic growth in China are the urban areas.