A Couples-based Approach to the Problem of Workless FamiliesDeborah A. Cobb-Clark (), Christopher Anthony Ryan and Robert Vincent Breunig () ANUCBE School of Economics Working Papers from Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics Abstract: The goal of this paper is to evaluate a “couples-based” policy intervention designed to reduce the number of Australian families without work. In 2000 and 2001, the Australian Government piloted a new counseling initiative targeted towards couple-headed families with dependent children in which neither partner was in paid employment. Selected women on family benefits (who were partnered with men receiving unemployment benefits) were randomly invited to participate in an interview process designed to identify strategies for increasing economic and social participation. While some women were interviewed on their own, others participated in a joint interview with their partners. Our results indicate that the overall effect of the interview process led to lower hours of work among family benefit recipients in the intervention group than the control group, but to greater participation and hours in job search and in study or training for work-related reasons. Whether women were interviewed with their partner or not had no effect on the level of economic and social activity of participants. JEL-codes: H3 I38 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Access Statistics for this paper More papers in ANUCBE School of Economics Working Papers from Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics |
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