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During the 1990s government polices designed to meet the needs of families represented the fastest growing area of social policy in Australia. These policies reflected contradictory pressures, partly expansionary, from various commitments made by the ALP government in the 1980s, including social wage bargains under the Accord, attempts to end child poverty, and increased support for working women, and partly contractionary, including increased emphasis on means-testing, managerialist support for user-pays and private provision, and cost- shifting to states and community organisation. The Coalition government in its 1996 budget has continued contractionary approaches while indicating a return to the male breadwinner approach to family policy.

Across countries the aims of transfer policy and the instruments used to affect these policies vary significantly. Moreover, within each country there are tensions between effectiveness goals (minimizing poverty and inequality) and efficiency goals maximizing the impact of given levels of resources). This paper develops a series of measures which capture these cross-national differences in order to examine whether there are trade-offs between efficiency and effectiveness goals, and whether these patterns can be related to a wider understanding of different welfare state regimes. The findings presented here suggest that there is a strong trade-off between efficiency and effectiveness, when considered in relation to the income inequality goal; while the evidence is mixed in relation to the poverty alleviation goal.

Abstract: The program budgeting and related reforms initiated by the Commonwealth in 1985 require federal departments and agencies to set objectives for their programs and to develop performance measures to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs. This paper examines the targeting efficiency of Australia's social security programs and finds that these are among the most efficient of OECD countries.

This article assesses the impact of globalization on welfare state effort in the OECD countries. Globalization is defined in terms of total trade, imports from low wage economies, foreign direct investment, and financial market integration. Welfare effort is analyzed in terms both of public spending (and separately on social service provision and income transfer programs) and taxation (effective rates of capital taxation and the ratio of capital to labor and consumption taxes). Year-to-year increases in total trade and international financial openness in the past three decades have been associated with less government spending. In contrast, integration into global markets has not been associated either with reductions in capital tax rates, or with shifts in the burden of taxation from capital to consumption and labor income. Moreover, countries with greater inflows and outflows of foreign direct investment tend to tax capital more heavily.

The decline in fertility rates across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations has been the subject of considerable debate over the past decade. The sudden decline in fertility following the post-war baby boom is viewed by some as a return to long-run trends, while others attribute the fall to decline in government financial support for families and changing social attitudes, career and lifestyle aspirations. This article explores a range of attitudes and aspirations reported by a group of childless respondents to the Negotiating the Life Course survey to establish whether these attitudes/aspirations vary with their stated fertility expectations. Using responses to 20 questions that cover gender role attitudes, the importance of children, and career and lifestyle aspirations, we find some significant differences between those who do and those who do not want to have a child. We further investigate respondents' fertility expectations three years on, and find that fertility expectations are not stable.

The decline in fertility rates across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations has been the subject of considerable debate over the past decade. The sudden decline in fertility following the post-war baby boom is viewed by some as a return to long-run trends, while others attribute the fall to decline in government financial support for families and changing social attitudes, career and lifestyle aspirations. This article explores a range of attitudes and aspirations reported by a group of childless respondents to the Negotiating the Life Course survey to establish whether these attitudes/aspirations vary with their stated fertility expectations. Using responses to 20 questions that cover gender role attitudes, the importance of children, and career and lifestyle aspirations, we find some significant differences between those who do and those who do not want to have a child. We further investigate respondents' fertility expectations three years on, and find that fertility expectations are not stable.

This article assesses the impact of globalization on welfare state effort in the OECD countries. Globalization is defined in terms of total trade, imports from low wage economies, foreign direct investment, and financial market integration. Welfare effort is analyzed in terms both of public spending (and separately on social service provision and income transfer programs) and taxation (effective rates of capital taxation and the ratio of capital to labor and consumption taxes). Year-to-year increases in total trade and international financial openness in the past three decades have been associated with less government spending. In contrast, integration into global markets has not been associated either with reductions in capital tax rates, or with shifts in the burden of taxation from capital to consumption and labor income. Moreover, countries with greater inflows and outflows of foreign direct investment tend to tax capital more heavily.

Abstract. This article assesses the impact of globalization on welfare state effort in the OECD countries. Globalization is defined in terms of total trade, imports from low wage economies, foreign direct investment, and financial market integration. Welfare effort is analyzed in terms both of public spending (and separately on social service provision and income transfer programs) and taxation (effective rates of capital taxation and the ratio of capital to labor and consumption taxes). Year–to–year increases in total trade and international financial openness in the past three decades have been associated with less government spending. In contrast, integration into global markets has not been associated either with reductions in capital tax rates, or with shifts in the burden of taxation from capital to consumption and labor income. Moreover, countries with greater inflows and outflows of foreign direct investment tend to tax capital more heavily.