Effects of Maternal Work, Day Care Use and Other Investments in Children on Child Cognitive Outcomes. Later life outcomes due to investments by individuals and/or society in children is crucial to many countries, including Australia. Appropriate policy responses require reliable and valid estimates of the likely effects of individual investments and policy interventions. Despite many research reports on this topic, almost all do not control for selection bias (eg, high achieving mothers tend to ....Effects of Maternal Work, Day Care Use and Other Investments in Children on Child Cognitive Outcomes. Later life outcomes due to investments by individuals and/or society in children is crucial to many countries, including Australia. Appropriate policy responses require reliable and valid estimates of the likely effects of individual investments and policy interventions. Despite many research reports on this topic, almost all do not control for selection bias (eg, high achieving mothers tend to put children in day care), which is a feature of our work. Thus, our empirical results will have major policy implications, and will suggest ways to obtain similar results for Australian environments. Read moreRead less
Insecure Work and the Mental Health of Workers and their Families. This project aims to explore the relationship between insecure work and mental health by applying advanced econometric methods to large survey and administrative datasets, and newly collected survey data. This project expects to provide causal policy-relevant estimates of how insecure work is affecting the wellbeing of workers and their families, and for whom the effects are most harmful. It also expects to inform on how poor men ....Insecure Work and the Mental Health of Workers and their Families. This project aims to explore the relationship between insecure work and mental health by applying advanced econometric methods to large survey and administrative datasets, and newly collected survey data. This project expects to provide causal policy-relevant estimates of how insecure work is affecting the wellbeing of workers and their families, and for whom the effects are most harmful. It also expects to inform on how poor mental health influences the types of jobs that people enter into. This should provide significant benefits, including evidence needed to improve existing workplace and employment programs, and evidence ensuring that assistance is efficiently targeted to those workers and industries with the greatest need.Read moreRead less
Living on the Margin: The Relationship between Mental Health and Work in Australia. This project will assess the relationship between Australians' mental health and their work, for example, employment status, work conditions and hours. The study is the first to exploit the detailed timing of mental health and employment transitions to identify whether poor labour market outcomes lead to poor mental health or whether the reverse is true. New Australian data will be used to understand whether the ....Living on the Margin: The Relationship between Mental Health and Work in Australia. This project will assess the relationship between Australians' mental health and their work, for example, employment status, work conditions and hours. The study is the first to exploit the detailed timing of mental health and employment transitions to identify whether poor labour market outcomes lead to poor mental health or whether the reverse is true. New Australian data will be used to understand whether the link between mental health and work adds to the economic vulnerability of families and those at risk of homelessness. The results will advance our understanding of the way that mental health affects overall economic well-being and will inform current policy initiatives to promote economic participation and good mental health.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100463
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$380,364.00
Summary
Exceptional upward mobility against all odds: Non-cognitive skills and early-childhood disadvantage. Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who exceed their parents' social achievements are pioneers. The aims of this project are to introduce this exceptional upward mobility as an alternative measure of economic success and to study its distribution and determinants. The main hypothesis is that these pioneers, apart from being intelligent, have a set of non-cognitive skills that mak ....Exceptional upward mobility against all odds: Non-cognitive skills and early-childhood disadvantage. Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who exceed their parents' social achievements are pioneers. The aims of this project are to introduce this exceptional upward mobility as an alternative measure of economic success and to study its distribution and determinants. The main hypothesis is that these pioneers, apart from being intelligent, have a set of non-cognitive skills that make them successful. This will be the first study to analyse these individuals and the personality-related determinants of their life trajectories. It will contribute to understand the various pathways via which non-cognitive skills affect upward mobility, and assess their malleability during childhood or adolescence.Read moreRead less
Self-control in Economic Behaviour. This project aims to use new Australian data to study the way that people’s self-control affects their economic behaviour. This project expects to advance science by testing two new ways of identifying whether people understand their own self-control issues and conducting an innovative program of research that links people’s self-control to their life chances. Expected outcomes include an understanding of i) the factors driving the capacity for self-control; i ....Self-control in Economic Behaviour. This project aims to use new Australian data to study the way that people’s self-control affects their economic behaviour. This project expects to advance science by testing two new ways of identifying whether people understand their own self-control issues and conducting an innovative program of research that links people’s self-control to their life chances. Expected outcomes include an understanding of i) the factors driving the capacity for self-control; ii) the role of self-control in promoting wellbeing; and iii) policy options for improving outcomes through better self-control. This should provide significant benefits in supporting policy agendas such as the Government’s Priority Investment Approach and behavioural economics teams. Read moreRead less
Do New Migrants move from Bad Jobs to Good Jobs: The Dynamics of Immigrant Settlement in Australia. This research investigates the dynamics of immigrant settlement in Australia. It studies the extent to which tightening up of the selection procedure for migrants and limiting access to social security has led to improved labour market success. It analyses the extent to which different groups of migrants who come from different countries and enter under different visa categories go through a phase ....Do New Migrants move from Bad Jobs to Good Jobs: The Dynamics of Immigrant Settlement in Australia. This research investigates the dynamics of immigrant settlement in Australia. It studies the extent to which tightening up of the selection procedure for migrants and limiting access to social security has led to improved labour market success. It analyses the extent to which different groups of migrants who come from different countries and enter under different visa categories go through a phase of unemployment, followed by a ?bad job? (in terms of their previous qualifications, wage levels, satisfaction with the job, etc.) before moving into a ?good job?. The research uses modern econometric techniques on recent panel data.Read moreRead less
Distributional Consequences of Mass-Market Higher Education in Business. Increased access to tertiary education has not been evaluated for its effects on the full spectrum of individuals served by the tertiary sector. Using longitudinal data on entire student populations at university business faculties, this project will provide the first Australian evidence on the trade-offs amongst the educational success of students with different levels of preparation that occur when those with poorer prep ....Distributional Consequences of Mass-Market Higher Education in Business. Increased access to tertiary education has not been evaluated for its effects on the full spectrum of individuals served by the tertiary sector. Using longitudinal data on entire student populations at university business faculties, this project will provide the first Australian evidence on the trade-offs amongst the educational success of students with different levels of preparation that occur when those with poorer preparation are added to classrooms. Short-term performance and medium-term attrition, a recent educational policy focus, will be evaluated. Theoretically grounded recommendations will result for undergraduate program design to suit a student population with varying levels of university preparation.Read moreRead less
Intergenerational Disadvantage: Causes, Pathways, and Consequences. This Project aims to prevent poor Australian children from becoming poor adults by developing scientific evidence and creative policy approaches to overcome entrenched disadvantage. The Project will generate new knowledge on how social assistance dependence is linked across generations using new Australian data. Expected outcomes are the identification of i) the causal link between parents’ and children’s social assistance depen ....Intergenerational Disadvantage: Causes, Pathways, and Consequences. This Project aims to prevent poor Australian children from becoming poor adults by developing scientific evidence and creative policy approaches to overcome entrenched disadvantage. The Project will generate new knowledge on how social assistance dependence is linked across generations using new Australian data. Expected outcomes are the identification of i) the causal link between parents’ and children’s social assistance dependence; ii) the pathways through which youths overcome disadvantage; and iii) the role of family structure in transmitting disadvantage. Transforming the evidence base, the findings will have significant benefits in redesigning the Australian social safety net, promoting social and economic mobility.Read moreRead less
Bayesian choice modelling. Discrete choice models are important as they provide tools to help understand choice processes of decision makers. It remains a challenge to specify models with covariance structures flexible enough to capture complex patterns of cross-substitution between choices while being able to capture heterogeneity present in individual behaviour. We will develop a Bayesian approach to choice modelling that uses covariance selection to overcome these problems. This will train re ....Bayesian choice modelling. Discrete choice models are important as they provide tools to help understand choice processes of decision makers. It remains a challenge to specify models with covariance structures flexible enough to capture complex patterns of cross-substitution between choices while being able to capture heterogeneity present in individual behaviour. We will develop a Bayesian approach to choice modelling that uses covariance selection to overcome these problems. This will train researchers and raise the profile of Australia in an active research area that is important in the social sciences; substantive applications will be in health economics, but developments will also be relevant to cognate areas of biostatistics, epidemiology, and ecology.Read moreRead less
Small firms' finances: effects on employment, wages and growth. The project aims to estimate how difficulties in accessing financial and credit markets affect small and medium enterprise (SME) decisions about employment, wages, entry and exit. Although the SME sector is Australia’s largest employer, the extent to which financial constraints affect these firms' market performance and their ability to create and sustain employment is unknown. The project plans to use an econometric analysis of fir ....Small firms' finances: effects on employment, wages and growth. The project aims to estimate how difficulties in accessing financial and credit markets affect small and medium enterprise (SME) decisions about employment, wages, entry and exit. Although the SME sector is Australia’s largest employer, the extent to which financial constraints affect these firms' market performance and their ability to create and sustain employment is unknown. The project plans to use an econometric analysis of firm level panel data to fill this gap. The intended outcome is micro-econometric findings tailored to improve targeted labour and financial policy. The expected benefit is to provide input to policy responses that support employment, productivity and wages in volatile market conditions.Read moreRead less