Japanese public pension benefits, which were distributed quarterly through February 1990 and every other month since then, induce substantial but predictable income fluctuations. The relative magnitude of the payments combined with the delay between payments yields a stronger test of the...

Briefly, some of our findings are as follows. First, the impacts of a universal NCP scheme on poverty rates and the poverty gap of the older persons would be significant, but become less potent when the eligibility age is higher. In particular, with the benefits provided, the older persons who...

This paper describes microsimulation modelling in non-technical terms and explains what can be achieved with microsimulation modelling in general, and the Melbourne Institute Tax and Transfer Simulator (MITTS) in particular. The focus is on behavioural microsimulation modelling, which takes...

There has not been any major change in gender occupational segregation in recent years in Australia. The analyses presented in this paper, using data from the 1996 Census of Population and Housing, suggest that this occupational segregation stems more from gender differences in entry-level...

There is considerable evidence that social position and economic status are related to mental health. This article uses data from the first wave of the HILDA Survey to replicate and extend previous research demonstrating the elevated prevalence of mental disorders among different groups of...

The re-emergence of long term unemployment and benefit dependency has posed new challenges for traditional welfare and employment assistance regimes. New strategies aimed at ‘activating’ benefit systems, ‘making work pay’ and improving the efficiency of labour market programs are being...

The introduction of A New Tax System in July 2000 included substantial changes to social security payments, including family assistance and child care subsidies. Most of these payments are income tested, so that as a family’s income increases the amount of government assistance it receives is...

How much retirement income is needed in order to maintain one's living standard at old age? As it is difficult to find a firm basis for an empirical treatment of this question, we employ a novel approach to assessing an adequate replacement rate vis- a-vis income in the pre-retirement period. We...

Making due allowances for differences in demographics, the labour market and internal migration dynamics, this study analyses the sustainability of the Italian pension balance at a regional level. A worsening of the elderly dependency ratio and a decline in birth and employment rates have...

Welfare state decommodification is one of the central concepts in the comparative study of welfare states. Mainstream literature on the subject has however two important shortcomings: (1) it neglects the decommodifying potential of labour market institutions (‘in-work decommodification’) and...