Ciara Smyth, Margot Rawsthorne and Peter Siminski describe the labour market transition experiences of Australian mothers who are balancing work and family responsibilities. The study reveals the contextual, fluid and complex nature of the life and work decisions that women who are parents make over the life course.

Peter Saunders and Peter Siminski examine the impact of home ownership on income distribution and the incidence of low-income using data from the Household Expenditure Surveys conducted in 1993–94 and 1998–99. Using the market value approach to derive an estimate of imputed rental income, they conclude that in 1998–99 imputed rent had an equalising distributional...

Using census data Peter Siminski, Jenny Chalmers and Marilyn McHugh find that foster carers are most likely to be women aged 35-54 years who are not in the labour force. Of the various family types (adjusted for age), couples with birth children are least likely to foster. Couples with birth children account for two-fifths of...

Peter Siminski and Peter Saunders present regional comparisons of income both before and after housing costs, derived from the latest (1998-99) Household Expenditure Survey and from the 2001 Census. Both sources indicate that while the percentage of people in low-income households is lower in major urban locations than in the rest of Australia, these differences...

This paper is part of a broader project on household inequality and living standards being conducted by the Social Policy Research Centre in partnership with the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The main purpose of the paper is to discuss methodological issues in assessing geographical differences in the propensity of households to be relatively poor, and...