Women are participating in the labour market in higher proportions than in the past, with the female participation rate in June 2012 standing at 58.9 per cent. However, a gendered pattern of workforce engagement persists, particularly as it concerns part-time employment; 70 per cent all...

This paper provides evidence on changes in the labour force status of Indigenous and other Australians since the mid-1990s, a period of strong macroeconomic growth. The paper expands the standard definitions of labour supply to consider marginally attached workers—people who want to work but...

This paper provides pictures of low pay adult employees in Australia in 2004 drawing on data from the HILDA survey. The low paid are disaggregated into full-time and part-time employees. Estimates from multivariate probit models reveal that low wage employees are more likely to have casual...

Statutory minimum wages increased substantially in New Zealand between 2000 and 2008. Where less than three per cent of workers were being paid the minimum wage in the late 1990s, this figure increased to more than ten per cent of workers by 2008. However, it is not obvious how this rise in the...

From 2006 to 2009, Federal minimum wages in Australia were set by the Australian Fair Pay Commission. This paper uses data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia panel survey to investigate the circumstances of persons who are paid at or near the minimum wage, and thus...

Recent US experience offers lessons about supply-side policies to sustain low unemployment. These include programs to change the skills of the workforce and improve the microeconomic incentives facing workers and employers. Two supply-side policies were greatly expanded after the mid-1980s....

Australia has moved rapidly from a centralised Award based wage determination system to decentralised enterprise bargaining. This move has been associated with a substantial drop in strike activity. The relationship between working days lost and a series of macroeconomic variables is tested for...

This paper aims to compare the labour market effects of two alternative retirement income polices: the superannuation guarantee charge; and the higher income taxes that would be required to fund the greater pension expenditure that would be incurred if the superannuation guarantee charge was...

Individual data from the Spanish Family Budget Survey (EPF 1990-1991) are used to estimate disaggregated wage curves (industry sector, gender, age, schooling, and occupation). The results show a wage curve for all employees with an elasticity of -0.13. It is also concluded that less protected...

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