Deregulation in Australia has had adverse effects on the income of those at the bottom end of the income distribution. Over the 1980s the share in private income of the top…
Abstract
Deregulation in Australia has had adverse effects on the income of those at the bottom end of the income distribution. Over the 1980s the share in private income of the top quintile rose and that of every other quintile fell. Except in the case of couples without children, the average real private income of the bottom quintile fell for every category of income unit. This increasing inequality seems to have been due to deregulation, not to the effects of technological change, and the increasing integration of the Australian economy into the world economy. One of the effects of deregulation has been an increase in unemployment. Policies to reverse this and to offset other adverse effects of deregulation are necessary. Increased levels of taxation will be required to finance them.
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Donald K. Gates and Peter Steane
The purpose of this paper is to examine how economic rationalism in policy development affects incomes and social cohesion within the communities in which businesses operate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how economic rationalism in policy development affects incomes and social cohesion within the communities in which businesses operate. Inequality of income occurs in most, if not all, countries. Historically, economic statisticians established various means of measuring levels of inequality within a country. Measuring inequality between countries, however, is a complex procedure because of differences in money exchange rates and standards of living. Poverty exists in most countries but it is particularly extreme in the Asia‐Pacific Region and in Africa. Economic rationalistic policies that depend on the supremacy of the market are developed mostly without regard for their impact upon income share, fairness and social justice concerns. Some other economic rationalistic policy outcomes are detrimental to social cohesion within communities.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws upon earlier research undertaken by the author as well as upon published works of other researchers.
Findings
The analysis of this paper indicates that there are great income inequalities not only within nations but also between nations in the Asia‐Pacific Region.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited by the ability to examine all the research literature in the field in greater depth. However, the examination that has been possible indicates that where economic rationalism has a significant input in policymaking wide disparities in the distribution of incomes become apparent.
Practical implications
This paper provides government and corporate executives with an understanding that the policies they develop could advantage one section of the community over another. This could have a detrimental affect on the social cohesion of the communities they administer or in which their businesses operate.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils an identified need and supports policymakers seeking to achieve just outcomes in the communities in which they operate.
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From whichever point of view we consider it, Edwards's Memoirs of Libraries is a remarkable work. Its two volumes provide a total of two thousand pages of text It is at once a…
Abstract
From whichever point of view we consider it, Edwards's Memoirs of Libraries is a remarkable work. Its two volumes provide a total of two thousand pages of text It is at once a history of libraries—and a history on a world scale—and a manual of library administration. It can, of course, be criticised on that score. Would it not have been better to have issued the history separately, in two still sizeable volumes, and to have presented the practical manual as a separate work? As published by Trubner in 1859 the manual occupies the second half of the second volume which itself consists of rather more than 1,100 pages. But to Edwards the history and the administration were by no means so clearly divisible. The practical chapter on book‐binding, for example, approaches the subject historically; prints a small selection of Roger Payne's bills; and is illustrated, inter alia, with lithographs of sixteenth century bindings.
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the wage differentials along the entire distribution between immigrants and the Australian-born.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the wage differentials along the entire distribution between immigrants and the Australian-born.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, the authors apply a semi-parametric method (DiNardo et al., 1996) to decompose the distributional wage gap between immigrants and native-born Australians into composition effect and wage structure effect. The authors further apply the unconditional quantile regression (UQR) method (Firpo et al., 2007) to decompose the overall wage structure effect into contributions from individual wage covariates.
Findings
Relative to the native-born, both effects favour immigrants from English-speaking countries. For male immigrants from non-English-speaking countries (NESC) the favourable composition effect is offset by disadvantage in the wage structure effect, leaving little overall wage difference. Female immigrants from NESC are disadvantaged at the lower part of the wage distribution.
Practical implications
The increasingly skill-based immigration policy in Australia has increased skill levels of immigrants relative to the Australian-born. However, the playing field may yet to be equal for the recent NESC immigrants due to unfavourable rewards to their productivity factors. Also, immigrants are not homogeneous. Countries of origin and gender matter in affecting wage outcomes.
Originality/value
The unique wage-setting system and the increasingly skill-based immigration policy have made Australia an interesting case. The authors examine the entire wage distribution between migrants and native-born rather than focus on the mean. The authors differentiate immigrants by their country of origin and gender; and apply the UQR decomposition to identify the contributions from individual wage covariates.
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In the wake of public service liberalisation in many OECD countries, economic interventions into the purpose and implementation of social policies have gained a lot of interest in…
Abstract
Purpose
In the wake of public service liberalisation in many OECD countries, economic interventions into the purpose and implementation of social policies have gained a lot of interest in recent years. The prime aim of this paper is to describe the nature of these interventions. The paper examines the reasons for pursuing elusive efficiency objectives in the conduct of public policy, rationales for purchaser‐provider splits, evaluation of cost‐quality relationships, service costing and pricing, and the influence of “external” economic variables.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper breaks the analysis of public policy down to three layers of economic interventions: macroeconomics (allocative efficiency, intervention rationales and macroeconomic environment), mesoeconomics (economics of delivery in “social industries”) and microeconomics (agent behaviour, contracting, pricing and evaluation). Each level of economic intervention is illustrated with examples, mainly taken from Australian public policy and mainstream social economic research.
Findings
Some of the most critical questions in policy implementation (outsourcing, pricing, contracting and agency problems) can be traced back to economic reforms. Experiments with new modes of service delivery are driven by a changing economic context, yet the efficiency gains from these innovative approaches may come at the expense of service quality.
Practical implications
Changing macro‐, meso‐ and microeconomic variables profoundly alter the parameters of service delivery. Designers and managers of service delivery systems need to be aware of – and skilled in – the practical application of economic principles, concepts and methods.
Originality/value
Except for the health sector, there is a lack of consistent research on the interrelationships between the standard economics toolkit and the delivery of public services. Yet the two are profoundly intertwined. The paper helps distinguish these relationships by putting together elements of conceptual analysis and fieldwork.
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Julian Teicher, Chandra Shah and Gerard Griffin
This paper provides an account of Australian immigration in the late twentieth century focusing on labour market and industrial relations issues. The paper chronicles the changing…
Abstract
This paper provides an account of Australian immigration in the late twentieth century focusing on labour market and industrial relations issues. The paper chronicles the changing immigration policy framework, from one premised on exclusion to one designed primarily to serve the needs of the domestic labour market. One of the consequences of the policies, more by default than design, has been the transformation of society from a monocultural to a multicultural one. In spite of this migrants from other than mainly English speaking (MES) countries often have poor labour market outcomes, sometimes well after the time of arrival. This group appears to be more adversely affected by the downturn in economic cycles than other migrants or the Australian‐born population. At the industrial relations level trade unions have made a pragmatic, as well as a principled, shift to embrace immigrant workers from non‐MES countries. However the transition from a centralized system of conciliation and arbitration to a more deregulated labour market has compounded the disadvantage suffered by these workers.
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With an extensive range of information available at the swipe of a finger, the smartphone has become a ubiquitous tool for augmenting conversation. Users of English as a lingua…
Abstract
Purpose
With an extensive range of information available at the swipe of a finger, the smartphone has become a ubiquitous tool for augmenting conversation. Users of English as a lingua franca (ELF) often rely on such technology to help establish friendships by using them to sustain intersubjectivity. But how do they manage the multiple involvements this entails, such as participating in current talk while searching for linguistic items?
Methodology/approach
This study employs multimodal Conversation Analysis to undertake a detailed account of the way two young people, a Japanese male (22) and an Indonesian male (16) incorporate smartphones into their lingua franca English interaction. The analysis is based on naturally occurring conversations video-recorded by the Japanese participant, while both boys were living with an American homestay family.
Findings
The analysis explores the role of the smartphone in forward-oriented repair, including how the interactants, look up unfamiliar words, delay turn progressivity to fit those words into the turn-in-progress, and use images to accompany an unclear term. Speakers also occasionally abandon a look-up in order to reformulate the turn without the smartphone, relying instead on their own interactional competence.
Originality/value
The study offers insight into the way young people use smartphones as an affordance to manage and repair aspects of their L2 talk, enabling them to enhance their current interactional competence by drawing on the vast range of semiotic resources the phone possesses. Ensuring understanding is essential for developing and maintaining friendships, and for this particular peer culture of lingua franca English speakers, smartphones are a key tool for accomplishing that. As such, the study will be of interest to researchers and educators in the fields of both technology and interaction.
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Maryanne Theobald, Amanda Bateman, Gillian Busch, Megan Laraghy and Susan Danby
This chapter investigates children’s play and social interactions in a multilingual preschool context where the lingua franca (common language) is English. This investigation…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter investigates children’s play and social interactions in a multilingual preschool context where the lingua franca (common language) is English. This investigation follows the experiences of one child for whom English is a second language (L2). The analytic focus explores how the child gains access and participation in play activities in relation to the peer culture of the group.
Methodology/approach
Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis approaches, this chapter offers turn-by-turn analysis to show how the children’s interactions unfold and identifies children’s interactional approaches as they enter play and make friends. Particular attention is focused on how one of the children manages his attempts at entry into the peer group’s games using the building blocks.
Findings
The close detailed analysis of one extended episode highlighted the co-produced nature of interaction. The findings identify a repertoire of four resources used by one of the L2 children within the peer group, to access play activities in the building space: (1) linguistic resources of requests, such as “Can I play?” “Are you building?”; (2) “tailing” others closely; (3) references to the moral obligations of being a best friend; and (4) using objects as resources for entry. While the analytic focus is on one child’s strategies, analysis considers this child’s individual actions in relation to his peers. What is made apparent is that children’s uptake and participation in peer interaction is dependent on the social agenda and the local aspects of peer culture, not solely on children's language proficiency.
Originality/value
Attention to how children employ strategies to play and understanding the local conditions of peer culture can assist educators to support children’s attempts for participation and friendship in multilingual early years settings.
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The overall aim of the chapter is to explore how preschoolers with different language backgrounds accomplish everyday interaction at a Swedish preschool, where the lingua franca…
Abstract
Purpose
The overall aim of the chapter is to explore how preschoolers with different language backgrounds accomplish everyday interaction at a Swedish preschool, where the lingua franca (common language) is Swedish. More specifically, it aims to analyze how the target children, despite their limited language resources in Swedish, use their existing communicative resources to make friends and achieve intersubjectivity in front of two alphabet charts illustrating the Arabic and Latin alphabets, respectively.
Methodology/approach
The data are drawn from a single play episode between three boys and a girl, aged four years. Their interaction was video-recorded, and the analytical framework of the study is influenced by ethnomethodological work on social action focusing particularly on participants’ methodical ways of accomplishing and making sense of social activities.
Findings
The analyses show that the children’s trajectory of achieving intersubjectivity was partly bothersome as their interpretation of the alphabet charts diverged, due to their different language knowledge and earlier experiences. Hence, to attain joint understanding and intersubjectivity, they used a range of communicative resources: besides speaking Swedish they used word mixing, attention-getters (“look” and “check it out”), and nonverbal moves such as pointing, gesturing, intone, and screaming. It is notable that, despite some problems in understanding, their desire to make friends and have fun together seemed to compensate for their joint failure to always understand each other.
Practical implications
Detailed analyses and observations of how children with diverse language backgrounds use their communicative resources to achieve intersubjectivity and make friends can be useful for preschool teachers’ understanding of how they can further support the children’s socialization and capturing of the majority language – here Swedish.
Originality/value
The present chapter contributes to a wider understanding of how second-language learning is a complex trajectory edged with both setbacks and successes, especially when all the children interacting have diverse language backgrounds and experiences. However, the analysis highlights how, in their endeavor to make friends, the children find ways to solve problems in situ in their own way, and enjoy each other’s company despite the fragility of the play and their language shortcomings.
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WE wish for our readers a Good New Year. Whether it would be appropriate to wish readers a Happy New Year at this stage will depend upon many factors. Even before these words…
Abstract
WE wish for our readers a Good New Year. Whether it would be appropriate to wish readers a Happy New Year at this stage will depend upon many factors. Even before these words appear in type we may be involved in the more intense struggle for the very existence of our country which everyone seems to think must come sooner or later. The ultimate outcome of that we do not doubt, but while it continues we shall need all the strength, spiritual, mental and physical, that we possess. Nevertheless, it will be a good new year if we remain sensitive to all the needs and opportunities that surround us.