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Children's poverty has long been a central concern for policy makers and policy researchers. The body of extant research conducted and the range of programmatic interventions undertaken by successive governments in this and other countries is extraordinary. Nevertheless, children remain in poverty. Clearly there are many reasons for this, not least of which is the maintenance and intensification of market capitalism with its attendant blatant inequalities. Even so, the moral, political, social and economic imperatives for developing workable responses to children's poverty remain. This paper argues that we, in Australia, should adopt an approach increasingly taken in the UK. Drawing on, among other things, the new sociology of childhood, this approach begins not with the expertise of adult researchers and policy makers, but with that of children. In doing so, the case is made for why children's perceptions and experiences of poverty are key concerns for policy. The paper outlines in theoretical terms why children's voices matter. Invoking the new sociology of childhood and the sociology of identity, a conceptual framework for understanding why policy scholars and makers should carefully attend to the voices of their subjects is sketched - in this case, the subjects are children. Finally, some methodological implications of this for undertaking policy research informed by this approach are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the provision of distance education to young people studying from their isolated properties in remote areas of Australia. While Australia's innovative approach to remote education is well established, this paper challenges the gender and structural assumptions underpinning this approach. A sustained period of rural restructuring and a long period of drought have changed the social relations of agriculture in a number of significant ways that ultimately undermine distance education as it is currently constructed. The assumption that mothers are available to provide home tutoring is no longer valid given the pressures on them to work on properties due to staff cutbacks and off properties to earn additional income. Further, the trend for farm family properties to be amalgamated into larger holdings and for these holdings to be run by farm workers also undermines the assumption that parents are willing, able and resourced to home tutor their children for long periods. This paper raises significant questions about the adequacy of current distance education provisions in remote areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the core issues taken into account in tax transfer systems is the family circumstances of a particular recipient. Family tax transfer payments may be delivered through either the tax or the welfare system. However, the fundamental requirement is that there is a family, maintaining children. The concept of what is a family is a social rather than a legal construct. While marriage and spouse have legal definitions, family structures evolve and change over time. In this paper I explore the concept of family as it is used in the Australian income tax and welfare legislation. I consider the impact of the legislative construct of family on the entitlements to tax credits, and whether the definition of family is appropriate to ensure that the benefits improve the equity of the taxation system, and properly reflect the structure of the contemporary family unit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low fertility in Australia has been attributed to social factors which encourage women to devote more time to market work and reduce the number of children they have. This paper explores whether women might have fewer children because they experience a gendered division of unpaid household and childcare work. It uses ABS time use data to analyse the time spent by men and women in unpaid household and childcare, and finds an unpaid workload for women that is greater with additional children, and a relatively consistent workload for men across all family sizes. Controlling for the amount of paid work also suggests that the additional time spent, and increased share of unpaid workload experienced by women, is independent of time spent in paid work. This is consistent with the suggestion that women might restrict the number of children they have in order to control their unpaid workload. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In countries with low fertility regimes, researchers are focusing on what factors influence higher levels of parity and parity progression. This paper examines the impact of sex of existing children on parity progression in Australia. There are two dominant theoretical propositions about the effect of sex of existing children. Firstly, sex of existing children is more important in low-fertility societies than under high-fertility regimes in explaining parity progression, while secondly that sex of existing children is less important in societies with an egalitarian gender system. We model what effect sex of existing children has on progressing to a second and third child by analysing data from a nationally representative survey from Australia (Negotiating the Life Course), and consider the two theoretical positions. Other factors considered include continuity of relationship, educational background and religiosity. We find that sex of children has some impact on explaining parity progression in Australia, particularly for recent cohorts of childbearing women, but suggest that qualitative research would be useful in understanding why parents want both sons and daughters in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]