Using data from wave 5 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, this study examines: (i) the extent to which Australian employees use their annual leave entitlements; and (ii) the association between annual leave taking and weekly hours of work. After restricting...

In May 2004, the Australian government announced a "Baby Bonus" policy, paying women an initial A$3,000 per new child. We use household panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (N = 14,932) and a simultaneous equations approach to analyze the effects of this...

This study uses nationally representative panel survey data for Australia to identify the role played by mismatches between hours actually worked and working time preferences in contributing to reported levels of job and life satisfaction. Three main conclusions emerge. First, it is not the...

Using data from the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children (LSAC), this is the first analysis for Australia to evaluate the impact of attendance at pre-school programs on matched Year 3 nation-wide NAPLAN test outcomes in the domains of Numeracy, Reading, Spelling, Writing and Grammar. We...

This paper provides new evidence of coordination of retirement by mature age couples in Australia. Two complementary estimation approaches are used to highlight the importance of taking the household decision-making context into account when modeling the retirement behaviour of partnered men and...

In Australia, labour force participation among older people, particularly men over the age of 55, has been declining over the last 30 years. Previous research has found that in many OECD countries, the retirement income system actually provides incentives for older workers to retire early rather...

Over the past decade, changes to Australia’s retirement income policy have been announced in almost every Federal Budget, with no signs yet that reform is coming to an end. Indeed, the Simpler Super reforms announced in the 2006 Federal Budget have been described as the largest overhaul of...