IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iae/iaewps/wp2012n01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Did the 2007 Welfare Reforms for Low Income Parents in Australia Increase Welfare Exits?

Author

Listed:
  • Yin King Fok

    (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne)

  • Duncan McVicar

    (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne)

Abstract

This paper examines the impacts of recent Australian welfare to work reforms for low income parents of school-aged children who had been in receipt of Parenting Payment for at least one year. Specifically, the reforms introduced a requirement to engage in at least 15 hours of work-related activity per week from the youngest child’s seventh birthday. We find large positive impacts on the hazard rates for exiting welfare and for switching between welfare payments. As a consequence, over the first year of the new regime the Parenting Payment caseload for the parents in this cohort with a youngest child aged 6 at the start of the year fell by 23.5%; without activation we estimate it would have fallen by 18.5%. The reforms also offer a rare opportunity to compare impacts on single and partnered parents, with partnered parents shown to be more responsive.

Suggested Citation

  • Yin King Fok & Duncan McVicar, 2012. "Did the 2007 Welfare Reforms for Low Income Parents in Australia Increase Welfare Exits?," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2012n01, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2012n01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2012n01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Fredriksson & Bertil Holmlund, 2006. "Optimal unemployment insurance design: Time limits, monitoring, or workfare?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(5), pages 565-585, September.
    2. repec:adr:anecst:y:2008:i:91-92:p:17 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Manning, Alan, 2009. "You can't always get what you want: The impact of the UK Jobseeker's Allowance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 239-250, June.
    4. Annette Bergemann & Gerard J. Van Den Berg, 2008. "Active Labor Market Policy Effects for Women in Europe - A Survey," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 91-92, pages 385-408.
    5. Jeffrey Grogger & Charles Michalopoulos, 2003. "Welfare Dynamics under Time Limits," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 530-554, June.
    6. Van den Berg, Gerard J., 2001. "Duration models: specification, identification and multiple durations," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 55, pages 3381-3460, Elsevier.
    7. Dan A. Black & Jeffrey A. Smith & Mark C. Berger & Brett J. Noel, 2003. "Is the Threat of Reemployment Services More Effective Than the Services Themselves? Evidence from Random Assignment in the UI System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1313-1327, September.
    8. Stéphane Carcillo & David Grubb, 2006. "From Inactivity to Work: The Role of Active Labour Market Policies," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 36, OECD Publishing.
    9. Gong, Xiaodong, 2004. "Transition Patterns for the Welfare Reliance of Low Income Mothers in Australia," IZA Discussion Papers 1047, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Martin, John P. & Grubb, David, 2001. "What works and for whom: a review of OECD countries' experiences with active labour market policies," Working Paper Series 2001:14, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    11. Rebecca M. Blank, 2002. "Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1105-1166, December.
    12. Duncan McVicar & Jan M. Podivinsky, 2010. "Are Active Labour Market Programmes Least Effective Where They Are Most Needed? The Case of the British New Deal for Young People," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2010n16, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    13. Garry F. Barrett & Deborah A. Cobb-Clark, 2000. "The labour market plans of parenting payment recipients: information from a randomised social experiment," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 4(3), pages 192-205, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bruce Bradbury & Anna Zhu, 2018. "Welfare Entry and Exit after Marital Separation among Australian Mothers," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 94(307), pages 405-423, December.
    2. Duncan McVicar & Roger Wilkins, 2013. "Explaining the Growth in the Number of Recipients of the Disability Support Pension in Australia," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 46(3), pages 345-356, September.
    3. Li, Liming & Avendano, Mauricio, 2023. "Lone parents' employment policy and adolescents’ socioemotional development: Quasi-experimental evidence from a UK reform," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    4. Paul Redmond & Seamus McGuinness & Claire Keane, 2023. "The impact of one-parent family payment reforms on the labour market outcomes of lone parents," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(2), pages 346-370.
    5. Hayley Fisher & Anna Zhu, 2019. "The Effect of Changing Financial Incentives on Repartnering," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(623), pages 2833-2866.
    6. R. G. Gregory, 2013. "The Henderson Question? The Melbourne Institute and fifty years of welfare policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 682, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    7. Avram, Silvia & Brewer, Mike & Salvatori, Andrea, 2018. "Can't work or won't work: Quasi-experimental evidence on work search requirements for single parents," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 63-85.
    8. Barbara Broadway & Tessa LoRiggio & Chris Ryan & Anna Zhu, 2022. "Literature review on the impact of welfare policy design on children and youth," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 809-840, September.
    9. Andrew Beer & Rebecca Bentley & Emma Baker & Kate Mason & Shelley Mallett & Anne Kavanagh & Tony LaMontagne, 2016. "Neoliberalism, economic restructuring and policy change: Precarious housing and precarious employment in Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(8), pages 1542-1558, June.
    10. Morescalchi Andrea & Paruolo Paolo, 2020. "Too Much Stick for the Carrot? Job Search Requirements and Search Behaviour of Unemployment Benefit Claimants," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-21, January.

    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. McVicar, Duncan, 2008. "Job search monitoring intensity, unemployment exit and job entry: Quasi-experimental evidence from the UK," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1451-1468, December.
    2. Micklewright, John & Nagy, Gyula, 2010. "The effect of monitoring unemployment insurance recipients on unemployment duration: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 180-187, January.
    3. DUNCAN McVICAR, 2010. "Does Job Search Monitoring Intensity Affect Unemployment? Evidence from Northern Ireland," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(306), pages 296-313, April.
    4. Kelly, Elish & McGuinness, Seamus & O'Connell, Philip J., 2011. "What Can Active Labour Market Policies Do?," Papers EC1, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    5. Graversen, B.K. & van Ours, J.C., 2006. "How to Help Unemployed Find Jobs Quickly : Experimental Evidence from a Mandatory Activation Program," Other publications TiSEM 4762e132-4660-4c32-8813-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Rosholm, Michael, 2008. "Experimental Evidence on the Nature of the Danish Employment Miracle," Working Papers 08-14, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    7. McVicar, D. & Podivinsky, J.M., 2007. "Does the impact of active labor market programs depend on the state of the labor market? The case of the UK new deal for young people," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0704, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    8. Martin Biewen & Bernd Fitzenberger & Aderonke Osikominu & Marie Paul, 2014. "The Effectiveness of Public-Sponsored Training Revisited: The Importance of Data and Methodological Choices," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(4), pages 837-897.
    9. Duncan McVicar & Jan M. Podivinsky, 2010. "Are Active Labour Market Programmes Least Effective Where They Are Most Needed? The Case of the British New Deal for Young People," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2010n16, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    10. Micklewright, John & Nagy, Gyula, 2008. "Job Search Monitoring and Unemployment Duration: Evidence from a Randomised Control Trial," CEPR Discussion Papers 6711, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Chiara Natalie Focacci, 2020. "“You reap what you sow”: Do active labour market policies always increase job security? Evidence from the Youth Guarantee," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 373-429, June.
    12. Wolfgang Ochel, 2004. "Welfare Time Limits in the United States – Experiences with a New Welfare-to-Work Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 1210, CESifo.
    13. Trine Filges & Lars Pico Geerdsen & Geir Smedslund & Anne‐Sofie Due Knudsen & Anne‐Marie Klint Jørgensen, 2013. "PROTOCOL: Active Labour Market Programme Participation for Unemployment Insurance Recipients: protocol for a systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 1-50.
    14. Wolfgang Ochel, 2005. "Welfare‐to‐Work Experiences with Specific Work‐First Programmes in Selected Countries," International Social Security Review, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(4), pages 67-93, October.
    15. Jochen Michaelis & Alexander Spermann, 2009. "Geringqualifizierte Arbeit, Marktlöhne und Sozialpolitik: Konzepte für Deutschland," MAGKS Papers on Economics 200920, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    16. Persson, Anna & Vikman, Ulrika, 2010. "Dynamic effects of mandatory activation of welfare participants," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2010:11, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    17. van Ours, Jan C. & Krogh Graversen, Brian, 2007. "How to Help Unemployed Find Jobs Quickly; Experimental Evidence from a Mandatory Activation Program," CEPR Discussion Papers 6057, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Graversen, Brian Krogh & van Ours, Jan C., 2008. "How to help unemployed find jobs quickly: Experimental evidence from a mandatory activation program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 2020-2035, October.
    19. Michael Svarer, 2007. "The Effect of Sanctions on the Job Finding Rate: Evidence from Denmark," Economics Working Papers 2007-10, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    20. Boone, Jan & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim & van Ours, Jan C., 2009. "Experiments on unemployment benefit sanctions and job search behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 937-951, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Welfare reform; welfare to work; activation; lone parents; labour supply; Australia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    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:iae:iaewps:wp2012n01. 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: Sheri Carnegie (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    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.