Relationship breakdown is a common life event with often severe economic consequences. To combat poverty in Australia, it is crucial to understand what effect separation has on poverty risk and financial wellbeing, and whether employment is a useful tool of protection. This study highlights the protective effect of economic autonomy, particularly for women.

In this paper, the authors share a range of ideas relating to health, labour markets, the tax and transfer system, gender equality, education, housing, and criminal justice. The aim is to provide an optimistic, forward-looking counterpoint to what has undoubtedly been a catastrophic year.

The results in this research suggest that wage growth inequality between employees is relatively independent of where the economy is in the business cycle, and that the differences between employees are more substantial than the year-to-year variation.

Female labour force participation has increased tremendously since World War II in developed countries. The key contribution of this paper is to provide separate and internally consistent estimates of the role of tax and transfer policy reforms, wage growth, population changes and changes in labour supply preferences as drivers for increased female labour force participation.

From 1 January 2011, the Australian Government implemented a new government-funded Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme. The evaluation was conducted in four phases. Findings informed the Government about the outcomes of the scheme, and they assessed the scheme’s likelihood of achieving its longer-term objectives.