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ADCS's Rachael Wardell responds to five key developments in the children's social work workforce

The employment relationship – that between employer and employee – is at the heart of capitalism and a core issue for public policy. Governments create rules, policies and institutions within which employees, their representatives, employers and their representatives, operate. The interest to governments when creating policy includes the form that bargaining takes, wage and employment levels, the nature and effects of contracting and the rights of workers – much of this boiling down to issues of power. In recent decades, major policy issues have included the federal Labor government's Prices and Incomes Accords in the 1980s and 1990s, the Coalition government's 'WorkChoices' legislation, the shift to enterprise bargaining, and developments in such areas as minimum wages and pay equity. In this chapter we outline the matters at stake, the players, the policy processes and some of the key issues.

The employment relationship – that between employer and employee – is at the heart of capitalism and a core issue for public policy. Governments create rules, policies and institutions within which employees and their representatives, and employers and their representatives, operate. The interest to governments when creating policy includes the form that bargaining takes, wage and employment levels, the nature and effects of contracting and the rights of workers – much of this boiling down to issues of power. In recent decades, major policy issues have included the federal Labor government's Prices and Incomes Accords in the 1980s and 1990s, the Coalition government's 'WorkChoices' legislation, the shift to enterprise bargaining, and developments in such areas as minimum wages and pay equity. In this chapter we outline the matters at stake, the players, the policy processes and some of the key issues.

Abstract.  In this paper we take advantage of differences in the legal status of mandatory retirement in Canada across jurisdictions and over time to assess its impact on the share of older people working. The results suggest that making mandatory retirement illegal would have little effect on the size of the older workforce, and therefore such a policy alone would do little to alleviate problems associated with an aging population and the consequent decline in the share of the population employed. JEL Classification: J26, J88