|
|
|
|
Pathways into work |

The pathways into work are many
and varied. The experiences of 18 to
22 year olds interviewed in the Living
in Australia study show this diversity.
Just over 40 per cent of people aged 18 in 2001
and 2002 were working, 45 per cent were
undertaking some form of education at school,
university or TAFE, and most of the remaining
14 per cent were unemployed.
By the time these people reached 22, 67
per cent were working, 15 per cent were
undertaking some form of education and most
of the remaining 18 per cent were either
looking after children or were unemployed.
After leaving school, six out of 10 people
undertook further study by the time they
were aged 22. Some chose to study before
working (46 per cent), some chose to work
before studying (27 per cent) and some
undertook further studies but had not
started working yet (27 per cent). University
level study was the most popular choice,
though 16 per cent studied at TAFE instead and six per cent of people undertook TAFE studies prior to university studies.

|
Working from home
|
|
With the
advances in information technology, it has been suggested that many of
us in the future will no longer have to leave home to go to work. Data
from the Living in Australia study
suggest that this trend may already have begun, with 28 per cent of
employed respondents indicating that at least some of their paid hours
were worked from home.
For the
large majority, however, working from home represents only a small
fraction of the working week, with around half working 5 hours or less
per week from home. People who were self employed were among those who
worked most from home.
Nevertheless,
the Living in Australia study
data indicate that hours worked at home represent 10 per cent of all
hours worked, which is far from insignificant.

|
Jobless households
|
|
A major
source of financial hardship is joblessness. Common with many other
developed nations, in recent decades Australia has seen the available
pool of employment become increasingly polarised into households where
either no adult is working or where all adults are working.
Restricting
attention to the working age population and excluding full-time
students, the Living in Australia study
shows that 16.0 per cent of all working-age households, had no adult in
paid employment. This compares with 62.0 per cent of households where
all adults were employed.

Of
particular concern is the number of children living in jobless
households. The Living in Australia study
reveals that 1 in every 7 children are growing up in a household with
no employed adult. This is relatively high by international standards.
Of
course, the implications of joblessness are far less serious if it is
only a short term phenomenon. By
tracing changes in income and joblessness over time for the same set of
individuals, we are able to examine transitions into and out of
poverty and attempt to identify factors that cause these changes. Longitudinal studies have shown that a high proportion of the poor are suffering from temporary poverty, resulting from a major life event such as divorce, illness or redundancy. Data from the first three years of the Living in Australia study shows that, although during this period 21.4 per cent of people were recorded to be in poverty for at least one year, only 3.4 per cent of the population were in poverty for all three years.
|
Non-standard jobs
|
|
The
following table reports mean scores on questions addressing
satisfaction with various aspects of the job, cross-classified by the
type of employment contract. The scores range from 0 to 10.
Mean Job
Satisfaction (on 0 – 10 scale) by Employment Type

Further
analysis of the results from the study, however, reveals that the lower
levels of job satisfaction reported among casual employees depends
critically on the number of hours worked. The majority of casual
employees work part-time hours, and these casuals are no less satisfied
than permanent employees (both those working part-time and those
working full-time). In contrast, casuals working full-time hours are
much less satisfied with their jobs than otherwise comparable permanent
employees.
|
Work - family balance
|
|
A major
emerging social issue is that of striking the right balance between
work and family life.The Living in Australia study
involves the collection of a wide range of data that will help cast
light on this issue. In the following table, for example, we report the
responses of working parents to a series of statements concerning the
difficulties of combining work and family responsibilities.
Satisfaction
with Work – Family Balance
(% of
working parents agreeing/disagreeing with the following statements)

The
results presented in this table indicate that between 31 and 59 per
cent of men in full-time jobs, and between 32 and 53 per cent of women
in full-time jobs, report adverse consequences for family life as a
result of their work commitments.
As might
be expected, those in part-time jobs (and especially the women) were
less likely to report work-family conflicts. Furthermore, though not
reported here, the likelihood of conflict is especially acute among
persons regularly working long hours each week.
|
Who works more - men or women?
|
|
A common
assumption is that since men are more likely to hold full-time jobs in
the paid workforce, men will also work longer hours than women. If we
take a broader view of work and also include housework, caring, charity
work and commuting time, then it is women who work longer, but only
just.
Information
from the Living in Australia study
reveals that among couples:
- Men work
63 hours per week on average.
- Women
work 64 hours per week on average.
- Men spend
the largest fraction of their time in paid work (or traveling to and
from work).
- Women
spend a much larger fraction of their time than men on housework (31
per cent) and on child care (18 per cent).

|
Working for an education
|
|
Almost 12
per cent of people are studying for a post-school qualification. Most
of these people are also in paid employment.
Of the
students studying for a post school qualification,
- 44 per
cent also have a full-time job, and
- 30 per
cent have a part-time job.
The Living in Australia data
indicates that:
- Full-time
workers tend to study part-time and part-time workers tend to study
full-time.
- The
average full-time student who also has a job works about 22 hours per
week, is in their mid twenties and typically has a casual job or a
contract for a fixed-term.
- The
average part-time student who also has a job, is much older, is in
their mid thirties, works a 40 hour week and is typically employed on
an ongoing or permanent basis.
Percent
of students enrolled in post-school education that work

|
Changing jobs
|
|
Based on
data collected from persons who responded in the first two years of the
Living in Australia
study, just over two-thirds of the Australian adult population were
employed for at least part of the time between late 2001 and late 2002.
As shown in the figure below, the majority of this group (82%) was
employed at both the start and end of this period. Moreover, the
majority (69%) was continuously employed with the same employer. Of the
remainder, about one-quarter ceased at least one job during this period
and the remaining 6 per cent were job starters who were still employed
at the end of the period.
Of those persons who had held a job at
some time during the period between the Living in Australia
2001 and 2002 interviews
(effectively a one year period), about one-quarter had ceased a job
during that time. Of these, 59 per cent can be described as job
leavers; that is, they quit or retired from their job through their own
choice. There is a further 36 per cent who lost their job because of
dismissal, retrenchment or business closure, or because the job had
only been temporary. There is a further 5 to 6 per cent who also might
be described as job losers, but for reasons that are mostly outside the
influence of employers—namely poor health.
These
figures translate to the following job mobility rates:
- Job
leaver rate: 14.9%
- Job loser
rate: 9.0%
As might
be expected, the voluntary job changers (i.e., job leavers) tend to
express greater levels of job satisfaction with their new job than
their previous job. This can be seen in the figure below, which uses
data from the sample of respondents in both waves, to report changes in
job satisfaction by whether someone changed a job and why. People who
made their own decision about leaving their job were much more likely
to report an increase in job satisfaction than people who remained in
the same job. In other words, when people quit they tend to find jobs
they like better.

More
surprising, even among those who were retrenched or fired, the
proportion reporting that their new job was better than their previous
job was larger than the proportion reporting the reverse. This is
especially significant given that the average respondent who was still
in the same job as a year earlier was slightly more likely to report a
decline in job satisfaction.
Overall, these results suggest that despite widespread fear of change,
people who change jobs are much more likely to report improvements in
job satisfaction than people who remain in the same job.
|
|
|
|
|