IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecolab/v12y2001i1p151-164.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Welfare Reform, Work and the Labour Market

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Saunders

Abstract

The welfare reform debate is proceeding against a background of high unemployment and rising inequality. In Australia, the blueprint for reform of the social security system developed by the McClure Report is built around the notion of mutual obligation — the idea that those who receive support from government should be required to ‘give something back’. Public opinion is supportive of requiring mutual obligation of some groups of the unemployed, but it also supports the view that solving unemployment generally is the government's responsibility. Although welfare reforms introduced in the US and UK have reduced the welfare rolls, their impact on wages and the labour market must also be considered. If welfare reform in Australia is to avoid the low wages and extreme poverty that are features of the US, welfare reform will need to be accompanied by reform of the labour market.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Saunders, 2001. "Welfare Reform, Work and the Labour Market," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 12(1), pages 151-164, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:12:y:2001:i:1:p:151-164
    DOI: 10.1177/103530460101200109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/103530460101200109
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/103530460101200109?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tony Eardley & Peter Saunders & Ceri Evans, 2000. "Community Attitudes Towards Unemployment, Activity Testing and Mutual Obligation," Discussion Papers 00107, University of New South Wales, Social Policy Research Centre.
    2. Ellwood, David T., 2000. "The Impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Social Policy Reforms on Work, Marriage, and Living Arrangements," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 53(n. 4), pages 1063-1106, December.
    3. Stephen Nickell, 1997. "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 55-74, Summer.
    4. Andrzej Grodner & Timothy Smeeding, 2000. "Changing Income Inequality in OECD Countries: Updated Results from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)," LIS Working papers 252, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cukierman, Alex & Lippi, Francesco, 2001. "Labour Markets and Monetary Union: A Strategic Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 541-565, July.
    2. DAVID M. BLAU & WILBERT van der KLAAUW, 2013. "What Determines Family Structure?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 579-604, January.
    3. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6120 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Nicole Simpson & Devin Reilly & Kartik Athreya, 2010. "The Earned Income Tax Credit: Insurance Without Disincentives?," 2010 Meeting Papers 1103, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2003. "Unemployment in Britain: A European Success Story," CESifo Working Paper Series 981, CESifo.
    6. Carlo Altavilla & Floro E. Caroleo, 2006. "Evaluating the Dynamic Effects of Active Labour Policies in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 20(2), pages 349-382, June.
    7. Galiani, Sebastian & Lamarche, Carlos & Porto, Alberto & Sosa-Escudero, Walter, 2005. "Persistence and regional disparities in unemployment (Argentina 1980-1997)," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 375-394, July.
    8. Hélène Périvier, 2007. "Les femmes sur le marché du travail aux Etats-Unis: une mise en perspective avec la France et la Suède," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-00972845, HAL.
    9. Herwig Immervoll & Horacio Levy & Christine Lietz & Daniela Mantovani & Cathal O’Donoghue & Holly Sutherland & Gerlinde Verbist, 2006. "Household Incomes and Redistribution in the European Union: Quantifying the Equalizing Properties of Taxes and Benefits," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Dimitri B. Papadimitriou (ed.), The Distributional Effects of Government Spending and Taxation, chapter 5, pages 135-165, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Morawski, Leszek & Myck, Michal, 2010. "'Klin'-ing up: Effects of Polish tax reforms on those in and on those out," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 556-566, June.
    11. Kemmerling, Achim & Bruttel, Oliver, 2005. "New politics in German labour market policy? The implications of the recent Hartz reforms for the German welfare state," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Labor Market Policy and Employment SP I 2005-101, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    12. Daron Acemoglu & Joshua D. Angrist, 2001. "Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 915-957, October.
    13. Christian Keuschnigg, 2008. "Corporate Taxation and the Welfare State," Working Papers 0813, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    14. Kenworthy, Lane, 2000. "Quantitative indicators of corporatism: A survey and assessment," MPIfG Discussion Paper 00/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    15. Daniele Checchi & Cecilia García‐Peñalosa, 2010. "Labour Market Institutions and the Personal Distribution of Income in the OECD," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(307), pages 413-450, July.
    16. Carmen Pagés-Serra, 2000. "The Cost of Job Security Regulation: Evidence from Latin American Labor Markets," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2000), pages 109-154, August.
    17. Robert J. Gordon, 2000. "The Aftermath of the 1992 ERM Breakup: Was There a Macroeconomic Free Lunch?," NBER Chapters, in: Currency Crises, pages 241-282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John A. List, 2019. "How natural field experiments have enhanced our understanding of unemployment," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 3(1), pages 33-39, January.
    19. Potrafke, Niklas, 2013. "Globalization and labor market institutions: International empirical evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 829-842.
    20. Sunde, Uwe, 2001. "Human Capital Accumulation, Education and Earnings Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 310, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Eamon, Mary Keegan & Wu, Chi-Fang, 2011. "Effects of unemployment and underemployment on material hardship in single-mother families," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 233-241, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:12:y:2001:i:1:p:151-164. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.