Understanding the retirement savings of self-employed tradespeople in Australia

Aaron Elkhishina (), Tracey West and Kirsten MacDonald ()
Additional contact information
Aaron Elkhishina: Griffith University
Kirsten MacDonald: Griffith University

Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), 2019, vol. 22, issue 2, 75-92

Abstract: Over the last decade, the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner (ABCC) together with the Association of Superannuation Funds Australia (ASFA) have raised concerns over the exclusion of self-employed tradespeople from Australia’s compulsory contribution system for employed people. We use logit models to compare the superannuation investment, as well as other assets, of self-employed tradespeople to employed tradespeople. We find self-employed tradespeople are less likely to hold superannuation assets and more likely to hold business assets, the family home, other property and equities. Self-employed tradespeople therefore save for retirement through investment in these alternative assets but are exposed to market uncertainty if they are reliant on the sale of the business to fund retirement consumption. We argue that, while self-employed tradespeople are relatively wealthier, superannuation exclusion has wider impacts related to the property industry, such as higher construction costs, increased demand for investment properties and associated tax advantages, and automation risk.

JEL-codes: G51 J18 J78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://ftprepec.drivehq.com/ozl/journl/downloads/AJLE222elkhishin.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ozl:journl:v:22:y:2019:i:2:p:75-92

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE) from Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sandie Rawnsley ().