A new report from the Centre for Social Impact provides an overview of the impact of the pandemic on the financial wellbeing of Australians, and explains the key elements of the government response so far.
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Tackling COVID-19 must include building a sustainable response in prison systems and other detention settings.
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Single mother-headed households are consistently the poorest household type in Australia, and the Women’s Policy Action Tank has published many analyses that illuminate their dire situation. In today’s analysis, Terese Edwards (@Terese_NCSMC) of the National Council for Single Mothers and Their Children provide us with a piece full of hope and excitement, detailing how the temporary rise in welfare payments have changed lives and provided hope.
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Women who have been to prison should be a priority group for violence prevention.
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The concept of carbon neutrality - a net zero release of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere - has circulated in our society over the last few decades [1]. The current levels of CO2 emissions have proven links to global warming and climate change. It is also well known that this phenomena is directly connected with the use of fossil fuels in industry, energy production, transportation, agriculture, construction and other human activities. The risk of climate change related natural disasters has seen governments, NGOs and institutions around the world to take actions towards mitigation. In this blog, Dr Fallas-Chinchilla reflects on the hidden environmental costs of transport electrification and asks – what are the environmental costs of the current strategy for offsetting carbon and could we be doing environmentally better whilst striving for carbon neutrality?
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Since lockdown measures were introduced on 23rd March 2020 in the UK, while a minority of vulnerable children attend school, and school staff have worked hard to stay connected, social workers and family support workers have been some of the few safeguarding professionals visiting families in their homes and often the only ones to do so regularly. I this blog post, Professor Harry Ferguson asks - How, then, are social workers and families managing the risks from COVID-19 that home visits carry?
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In Australia, the story of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic so far has been largely a positive one. Leadership and speed of response to this point has been recognised as critical to containment and management of the pandemic (Tiffen 2020). If we were to award the gold medal, it should go to our public health community. But we have seen strength in many quarters and for that reason, Valerie Braithwaite argues that we sell everyone short by singling any one group out.
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If you have ever needed money in a hurry it may have been tempting to apply for a small loan to tide you over until your next pay packet. During Covid-19 and with increasing financial precarity, ‘payday’ loans may be how people resource short-term solutions as many people look online for financial help. Research from Dr Vivien Chen at Monash Business School’s Department of Business Law and Taxation shows the rise of digital platforms has significantly increased consumer access to payday loans. The financial risk posed by Covid-19 presents a key opportunity for governments to develop policy and mechanisms to protect people in financial distress. This article originally appeared in Monash Impact.
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Marketing managers and academics have been studying how families plan ahead and make decisions about family care and family consumption for a long time. But what happens when planning ahead is not possible? A new study says that when consumers can’t plan ahead...they dance.
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Existing previous research indicates that sleep is a key factor associated with developmental psychopathologic symptoms. However, the nature of this association is still unclear. For example, we still do not know whether sleep problems may precede the development of certain mental health problems, or whether they merely co-occur together. In this blog post, Dr Isabel Morales-Muñoz talks about her latest research into sleep and it’s power.
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Jeff Thompson, a disability employment specialist from a community organization in Canberra, reflects on the changing landscape of disability services, and wonders who the current policies are serving. Are faith-based and for-profit organizations able to deliver the ‘choice and control’ promised by the National Disability Insurance scheme (NDIS)?
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There has been much talk of the ‘she-cession’ and whether the Federal government’s policy responses are adequate to respond to changes in employment. In today’s analysis, Leonora Risse (@Leonora_Risse) of RMIT (@RMIT) and the Women and Public Policy Program at Kennedy School (@wapppHKS) provides the data analysis to explain why women are being disproportionately impacted by the economic downturn and how the government could provide more targeted responses. You can also read Dr. Risse’s very popular analysis of the COVID-19 frontline workforce’s undervalued status as well as her thoughts on making the pandemic an opportunity to re-imagine a more just economy.
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Jeremiah Brown (@jeremiahtbrown) is a social policy Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact. In today’s post he talks about using economic dignity as a guiding principle for the economy. This work was completed during his time as the inaugural Brotherhood of St Laurence ANZ Tony Nicholson Research Fellow. You can read a longer discussion paper about conceptualising economic dignity here, and see how it can be applied to develop a financial wellbeing framework here.
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The Australian government has recently announced a $20 million injection of funds into mental health and suicide prevention research, acknowledging that disruptions to usual routines due to COVID-19 are increasing risk. However, it is notable that where mental health research is funded specific to one gender, it is most often designated for males. Today’s analysis explains why lopsided funding is misplaced; women experience worse overall mental health compared to men, and they are also disproportionately negatively impacted by COVID-19 and its policy responses. This analysis has been adapted from a policy brief compiled by Women’s Health Victoria (@WHVictoria) for the Women’s Mental Health Alliance. Graphs appear courtesy of Gender Equity Victoria (@genderequityvic); view their infographics here.
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As unemployment soars, our social welfare systems have been given a much-needed overhaul, albeit these changes are thus far considered temporary. What has not yet been discussed in any meaningful way is how the government will support people back into work. In today’s piece, Simone Casey (@SimoneCasey) of Per Capita (@percCapita) provides an analysis of the Work for the Dole program, an “employment program” that has been highly problematic. This piece first ran in Croakey.
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While it was anticipated that lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic would increase incidences of domestic and family violence, barriers to women accessing help made the full effects difficult to measure. In today’s analysis, Hayley Foster (@CEOWomensSafety) of Women’s Safety NSW (@WomensSafetyNSW) shares a summary of findings from a survey of practitioners which provide an emerging picture of what women’s experiences have been in lockdown and how the service system needs to be strengthened so that women have a realistic pathway to safety. Specific recommendations for keeping women safer provide a roadmap for immediate service and policy reform.
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Much has been written about the gendered impacts of COVID-19, the attendant economic downturn and the government policy responses. In today’s analysis, Signe Ravn (@Ravn_Signe), Brendan Churchill (@BrenChurchill) and Leah Ruppanner (@Leahruppanner), all of University of Melbourne, explain why young women are facing particular employment challenges and how government policy responses are failing to account for their particular circumstances. Young women are at risk of falling through the policy cracks, with long-term negative outcomes for their economic security.
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In today’s post, David Hildebrand from the Immigration Advice Service in the UK breaks down some of the reasons why people from BAME communities have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
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