For Anti-Poverty Week 2023, Dr Ana Gamarra Rondinel [@AnaGamarraRondi] Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research [@MelbInstUOM] and Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) and Dr Anna Price The University of Melbourne [@UniMelb] and Centre for Community Child Health, Murdoch Children's Research Institute [@MCRI_for_kids] explore the interplay between first time parenthood, financial security, and early child development.
Read MoreEnsuring all Australians have a safe, secure and affordable home is an important focus of Anti-Poverty Week 2023 (15-27 October). Here, Professor Stephen Whelan from the University of Sydney School of Economics (@USydneyEcon) and Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) examines the current state-of-play in Australia’s housing market, its influence on experiences of poverty, and what can be done to improve the future health, welfare and dignity of all Australians.
Read MoreThis year Anti-Poverty Week 2023 (15-27 October) is continuing and extending its campaign to end child poverty in Australia. To achieve this requires a strong focus on supporting families of all kinds. In today’s post Dr Alice Campbell (@ColtonCambo] of Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) examines the challenges and opportunities in supporting single parenting, co-parenting and post-separation families.
Read MoreBeing poor isn't just about lacking material resources; it's also an emotional experience involving shame, anger and hope, explain Rose-Marie Stambe and Cameron Parsell from the UQ School of Social Science.
Read MoreDr Millie Rooney, co-director of Australia Remade and long-time contributor here at Power to Persuade, has had some great ideas for new reality TV shows, following the success of ‘Alone Australia’. The question is - do we have contestants going it alone to survive, or a team effort to re-imagine a way for everyone to thrive?
Read MoreIn today’s post, Emma O’Neill of Good Shepherd (@GoodShepANZ) explores the potential impacts of the Government’s proposed regulation of Buy Now, Pay Later Products. Emma is a Senior Policy & Advocacy Advisor with a particular interest in women’s economic security, gender and climate change, and the impacts of marketisation on social equity.
Read MoreIn the wake of the budget, the Antipoverty Centre asked people on Centrelink payments – the real social policy experts – for their reactions. A contributor shared how he and other carers performing unpaid labour save the government money, and another describes the devastating impact of the failure to raise the JobSeeker rate on welfare recipients.
Read MoreThis year, Anti-Poverty Week @AntiPovertyWeek (16-22 October 2022) is calling on Australia to legislate a plan to halve child poverty by 2030 to meet our commitments to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Here, Life Course Centre @lifecourseAust researchers present 5 big ideas to help make this happen.
Read MoreThe Australian Government recognises the current Census questions on cultural, ethnic and racial identity are inadequate. So what might better Census questions look like? And how would more comprehensive data on Australia’s ethnoracial diversity help to better address underlying social and economic inequalities? In Anti-Poverty Week (@AntiPovertyWeek), Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) researcher and sociologist Dr Rennie Lee (@Rennie_Lee) at The University of Queensland, and colleague Professor Farida Fozdar, sociologist at Curtin University, examine this important data collection issue that is vital for government policymaking.
Read MoreThis year marks the 20th year of Australia dedicating a week to act on poverty and Anti-Poverty Week 2022, 16-22 October (@AntiPovertyWeek) is calling on our Parliamentarians to legislate a plan to halve child poverty in Australia by 2030. To achieve real change, Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) researchers Dr Alice Campbell (@ColtonCambo) and Professor Janeen Baxter (@JaneenBaxter7) highlight the prevalence of single parent families in poverty and the need for targeted supports.
Read MoreAeryn Brown is a JobSeeker recipient from Tasmania. They authored the below open letter to social security minister Amanda Rishworth as part of the Break the Poverty Machine week of action, which will be held to mark the International Day to Eradicate Poverty on 17 October – one week ahead of the federal budget. People on low incomes and supporters can get more information and register to participate in the #BTPM protest (either online or in person in Adelaide) here: btpm2022.eventbrite.com.au
Read MoreMarina is one of nearly 900 000 Australians who are either unemployed or underemployed and who receive either Jobseeker Payment or Youth Allowance. This open letter is to Amanda Rishworth, Minister for Social Services in preparation for an upcoming “raise the rate” protest hosted by the Anti-Poverty Centre and the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union on International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
Read MoreChildren and young people continue to be sidelined in policy making, even as calls grow for their views and experience to be included. Sharon Bessel, director of the Children’s Policy Centre, and of the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at the ANU, takes us through how children should be central to the move to a wellbeing budget and addressing poverty.
Read MoreSingle mothers have been consistently the most poverty-stricken household type for years, and the last Labor government infamously moved thousands onto the (then) NewStart Allowance. With the recent federal election outcome, Terese Edwards (@Terese_NCSMC) of the National Council for Single Mothers and Their Children shares an open letter to Anthony Albanese, who was himself raised by a single mother in difficult financial circumstances. Her letter is interspersed with the messages from single mothers to the new Prime Minister.
Read MoreJust days away from the Federal election, all candidates are campaigning hard. Unfortunately there are gaps in the policies on the table; a big one is the lack of focus on the social safety net and whether it is actually supporting people out of poverty. In today’s analysis, Juanita McLaren (@defrostedlady) shares just how quickly a well-managed budget can be undone, in part by changes to policies in other silos that don’t consider the constrictive budget many families need to live on.
Read MoreExamining, and supporting, women’s financial wellbeing at a single point in time will never fully capture, nor compensate for, the effects that experiences of violence have on their lives. Life Course Centre (@lifecourseAust) researchers Dr Alice Campbell (@ColtonCambo), Professor Janeen Baxter (@JaneenBaxter7) and Dr Ella Kuskoff (@EllaKuskoff) from The University of Queensland (@UQ_News) are investigating how violence and multidimensional disadvantage intersects and accumulates for women over the life course.
Read MoreThere is increasing interest in the links between women’s health and their socio-economic constraints. Today’s vitally important analysis is drawn from a newly-published longitudinal analysis that demonstrates a range of factors that are overwhelmingly gendered is creating a road to poverty for Australian women, negatively impacting on their mental health in demonstrable ways. This piece is authored by Joanne Enticott (@EnticottJo), Emily Callender (@EmilyCallander), Rhonda Garad, and Helena Teede, all of Monash University’s Centre for Health Reserach and Implementation (@MonashUni). This article originally appeared in Monash Lens and is republished with permission.
Read MoreThis blog is based on the article “Poverty by Design: The Role of Charity and the Cultivated Ethical Citizen”, published in Social Policy and Society by Cameron Parsell (@cameronparsell), Andrew Clarke (@andrew_c4000) and Francisco Perales from the University of Queensland. It originally appeared on The Social Policy Blog.
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