Family Matters articles from March 2003

Family Matters archives from March 2003

Acting director's report.(David de Vaus)(Australian Institute of Family Studies)
March 22, 2003... Departure of David de Vaus After a period of 18 months as part-time Senior Research Advisor at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, David de Vaus is returning to full-time employment at La Trobe University. He has been appointed as...

Ageing: issues for Australian families.(Overview)
March 22, 2003... I have pleasure in introducing readers to this issue of Family Matters which focuses on multiple aspects of ageing as it impacts on Australia's families. Ageing is a topic which is going to be of increasing salience to Australia, and where...

Australia's ageing yet diverse population.
March 22, 2003... Australia is one of the many countries experiencing falling fertility in the context of increasing life expectancy--and thus an ageing population. Other important changes include shifts in the transition from a virtually mono-cultural society...

Grandparents supporting working families: satisfaction and choice in the provision of child care: grandparents are by far the greatest providers of informal child care, yet little is known about how grandparents view this role. Insights into grandparents' experiences have the potential to inform child and family policies.
March 22, 2003... The rise in the number of sole-parent families and the rise in maternal employment are seen as being among the most significant changes to have affected family organisation in recent times (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2002; Wise...

Are welfare states financing their growing elderly populations at the expense of their children?
March 22, 2003... In most OECD countries social expenditure takes almost one third of national GDP and represents half of total government expenditure. Within social expenditure, the largest proportion of spending is taken up by old age pensions. In 1998, the...

Ageing, living arrangements and subjective wellbeing: life expectancy in Australia increased markedly over the last century, but what is the quality of most of these added years? Are people approaching so-called "retirement age" finding the prospect daunting? How do older people view their lives? New HILDA data are used to shed some light on these questions.(Trends)
March 22, 2003... In as far as life expectancy is a reasonable indicator of health-related quality of life at the national level, Australia is doing particularly well. Life expectancy has increased by more than 20 years since 1901 and is now 77.0 years for men...

The value of unpaid work of older Australians: as the population ages, the direct financial costs to governments are expected to rise due to the income support and health costs associated with an older population. This has led to an unduly negative, problem-oriented view of population ageing that neglects the contribution of older citizens to the social and economic wellbeing of the nation.
March 22, 2003... Like most countries throughout the world, Australia is experiencing the demographic transition of population ageing. Just a few statistics illustrate the magnitude of this transition. In 1976, 9 per cent of the Australian population was aged...

Older migrants and their families in Australia: Trang Thomas discusses the family experiences of older migrants--both those who came as young migrants and now have grown old, and those who came during their old age to join their adult children in Australia.
March 22, 2003... It is now a truism that the Australian population is ageing, and ageing more rapidly in some groups than others. Specifically, the number of older immigrants of non-English-speaking backgrounds has been growing at five times the rate of the...

The role of families in an ageing Australia: families have a central place in the population ageing debate. This article looks at the role of families and the challenges they face in changing social and economic circumstances. It endorses a life cycle approach to responding to the challenges of population ageing.
March 22, 2003... The ageing of Australia's population has received considerable attention in recent times as the social and economic implications of a changing population structure are more fully appreciated. Projections based on current trends indicate that...

Grandparents' raising grandchildren--a new class of disadvantaged Australians.(Opinion)
March 22, 2003... The rapidly changing nature of family and society is underscored by the rapid growth of a new group in society whose members are slipping through the social safety net--grandparents who are substantially responsible for raising their...

Launch: Australian center for the study of the sexual assault.(AIFS Activities)(Australian Institute of Family Studies)
March 22, 2003... The Australian Institute of Family Studies welcomed Senator Amanda Vanstone (former Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women) to visit the Institute to launch the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA) on...

AIFS abroad--ANTWERP.(AIFS Activities)(Australian Institute of Family Studies)
March 22, 2003... Senior Research Fellow, Matthew Gray, represented the Institute at the 4th International Research Conference on Social Security, in Antwerp on 5-7 May 2003. The title of the conference was "Social security in a long life society". Matthew...

AIFS keynote address.(AIFS Activities)(Australian Institute of Family Studies)
March 22, 2003... The Institute's Senior Research Advisor, David de Vaus, presented the Keynote Address at the Marriage and Relationships Education National Conference in Adelaide, on 26 August 2003. He outlined patterns of contemporary cohabitation in Australia...

Launch: insights into adolescent behaviour.(AIFS Activities)(Australian Institute of Family Studies)
March 22, 2003... The second report from the collaboration between the Australian Institute of Family Studies and Crime Prevention Victoria--Patterns and precursors of adolescent antisocial behaviour: Types, resiliency and environmental influences--was launched...

AIFS abroad--Vancouver.(AIFS Activities)(Australian Institute of Family Studies)
March 22, 2003... The question, "What is the future of marriage?" formed the central theme for the 65th (US) National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference, held in Vancouver on 19-22 November 2003. Delegates from 16 countries in addition to the United...

AIFS hosts Singapore delegation.(AIFS Activities)(Australian Institute of Family Studies)
March 22, 2003... On Wednesday 3 December 2003 the Institute was pleased to receive a delegation of senior policy makers from Singapore, led by the Minister for Community Development and Sports and Minister-in-Charge of Muslim Affairs Dr Yaacob Ibrahim. The...

Everyday life for low-income families in Scotland.(AIFS--Hosted Seminars)
March 22, 2003... (Seminar held at the Institute on 18 September 2003) Kathryn Backett-Miburn, Senior Research Fellow at the Research Unit in Health Behaviour and Change and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships...

Grandparenting in divorced families.(AIFS--Hosted Seminars)
March 22, 2003... (Seminar presentation held at the Institute on 16 October 2003) Dr Neil Ferguson, a Research Associate at the Cardiff University Law School, presented the results of a study on family members' perceptions of the impact of divorce on...

Does age-of-entry matter in infants' transition to child care?(AIFS--Hosted Seminars)
March 22, 2003... (Seminar presentation held at the Institute on 6 November 2003) Dr Cheryl Dissanyake, from the School of Psychological Sciences at La Trobe University, presented results of a recent study she undertook with Dr Helen Skouteris into the best...

Who do children live with and why does it matter?(AIFS--Hosted Seminars)
March 22, 2003... (Seminar held at the Institute on 4 December 2003) Dr Peter Brandon, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts in the USA and a visitor to the Demography and Sociology Program at ANU in 2003, presented a seminar on...

Contemporary issues in family research.(Seminars 2004)(Calendar)
March 22, 2003... In 2004 the Australian Institute of Family Studies is continuing its series of seminars presenting research on national and international issues related to the family. The seminars, designed to promote a forum for discussion and debate, are...

The "joint custody" debate: where to now? The parliamentary inquiry into a legal presumption of 50:50 joint parenting after parental separation continues to generate intense debate. The Institute's Catherine Caruana reports on a recent professional forum.(Family Law)
March 22, 2003... After an 11-week whirlwind tour, involving travel to 16 or so locations around Australia, receipt of 1,698 written submissions, endless hours of public hearings and community consultations, hearing from a range of individuals and...

Just like us: Parenting children with intellectual disabilities.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 22, 2003... by Carol Martin, Lothian, South Melbourne, 2003. Price: $24.95. Written by the mother of two daughters with cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability, this book aims to raise community awareness of the problems faced by children with...

The effects of parental drug use: Children in kinship care, and Parental drug use: The bigger picture.(Book Notes)(Brief Article)(E-book Review)
March 22, 2003... by Nicole Patton, The Mirabel Foundation, St Kilda South, 2003. Price: free to download at www.mirabelfoundation.com/ The Mirabel Foundation was established to assist children who have been abandoned or orphaned due to illicit drug use by...

Hearing the voices of children: Social policy for a new century.(Book Notes)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 22, 2003... edited by Christine Hallett and Alan Prout, Routledge Falmer, London,2003. The authors of this collection of papers argue for the inclusion of children's wishes and opinions in the formulation of social policy. Four main themes are...

When a man is raped: A survival guide.(Book Notes)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 22, 2003... by Margaret Roberts, Education Centre Against Violence, Parramatta, 2002. www.ecav.health.nsw.gov.au This booklet, subtitled "Information for men who have been raped, parents, partners, spouses and friends" is designed to aid in the...

After adoption: Direct contact and relationships.(Book Notes)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 22, 2003... by Carole Smith and Janette Logan, Routledge, London, 2003. Based on UK research with adoptive parents, children and birth relatives, this book considers the impact on all concerned of children's post-adoption contact with birth relatives....

When the children arrive: A resource book for carers.(Book Notes)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 22, 2003... by The Mirabel Foundation, St Kilda South, 2001. Price: $20.00. This practical booklet was written to assist carers address and recognise some of the problems and issues that can arise when they become the primary carer of a child/children...

Ageing in Australia 2001.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 22, 2003... Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, 2003. Price: $33.00. On census night in 2001, 2.4 million Australians, (or 12.6 per cent of the population) were classified as older persons (65 year old and over). This publication analyses the...

Conferences.(Calendar)
March 22, 2003... This short selection of forthcoming family-related conferences is taken from the Australian Institute of Family Studies Internet listing, which is updated weekly. For the complete, up-to-date list, refer to www.aifs.gov.au/...

The unpaid work of older Australians: New.(Publications)
March 22, 2003... Measuring the value of unpaid household, caring and voluntary work of older Australians, by David de Vaus, Matthew Gray and David Stanton, AIFS Research Paper No. 34, November 2003.32 pages. Also accessible online. As the populations in...

News from ACSSA.(Publications)(Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault)
March 22, 2003... The Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA), at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, has now released the second in both its Newsletter and Briefing Paper series. Among the contents of ACSSA Aware No. 2 (November 2003,...