EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Welfare Entry and Exit after Marital Separation among Australian Mothers

Bruce Bradbury and Anna Zhu

The Economic Record, 2018, vol. 94, issue 307, 405-423

Abstract: Australian administrative data is used to examine patterns of welfare receipt for up to 5 and a half years after marital separation. We examine relationship status, income support and other incomes both before and after separation with a particular focus on the routes into and out of welfare receipt. Exits associated with new partnering are compared with those likely to be due to earnings increases. We find substantial volatility in relationships, with around a third of separations being only temporary (re‐partnering with the original partner). Focusing on the permanent separations, we find a convergence in the welfare receipt rates of initially well‐off and poor mothers, which is then slowly unwound as more advantaged mothers leave welfare at a faster rate. The channels of welfare exit (finding a new partner versus exiting welfare while remaining single) are associated with different characteristics. Family size is an equally important predictor of exit rates as the age of the youngest child.

Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-4932.12427

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:94:y:2018:i:307:p:405-423

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0013-0249

Access Statistics for this article

The Economic Record is currently edited by Paul Miller, Glenn Otto and Martin Richardson

More articles in The Economic Record from The Economic Society of Australia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:94:y:2018:i:307:p:405-423