Abstract presentations and papers will be available on the AIFS website following the Conference: www.aifs.gov.au

Program

The Conference program is made up of a series of abstract presentations, a panel session plus three prominent keynote speakers to ensure a stimulating, groundbreaking and highly educational meeting is delivered.

Delegates will have the opportunity to choose from a wide range of sessions which directly relate to their areas of responsibility, research and experiences in family studies and policy.

The abstract presentations will enable researchers, policy makers and practitioners to report on their findings from family-related research and their practice.

The Conference themes are:

• Family Relationships
• Children, Youth and Patterns of Care
• Families and Work
• Families and Community Life
• Violence and Protection Issues
• Open (other)

These are the themes around which the Institute’s current work is organised. They are closely related to national policy priorities and areas of particular research interest. Within the framework of these broad themes there are sub-themes covering an extensive range of topics related to families that allows a broader scope for discussion.

Keynote Speakers

In 2008, we have again secured eminent keynote speakers who will no doubt arouse interest and inspire debate within their areas of expertise.

Peter Whiteford - Peter has been appointed as a Professor at the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW. Previously he was Principal Administrator, Social Policy Division, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris, and he has also worked at the University of New South Wales and at the University of York in the United Kingdom, as well as in the Department of Family and Community Services. Peter is an expert in family assistance policies, welfare reform, and other aspects of social policy, particularly ways of supporting the balance between work and family life. He has published extensively on various aspects of the Australian system of income support. His research has also concentrated on international comparisons of systems of social protection and comparisons of poverty and income distribution.

Assistance for Families: An Assessment of Australian Family Policies from an International Perspective

Friday 11 July 2008, 9.00am – 10.30am
Auditorium

In all OECD countries governments provide a range of assistance to families with children.  This assistance can take a variety of forms, including direct cash assistance (income-tested or universal), support through the tax system, and the provision of services either free or at reduced cost. The objectives of assistance differ across countries, but there are important elements in common, including providing support for the direct costs of raising children, alleviating child poverty, compensating for the indirect costs of children in terms of their impact on the earnings of parents, increasing fertility, promoting gender equity and supporting the employment of parents (among other goals).  The fundamental objective of this support, however, is to assist families in their caring responsibilities in order to enhance the wellbeing of children.
While Australia has much in common with other countries, its system of family assistance has a number of distinctive features – spending has increased rapidly: a decade ago overall spending levels were around the OECD average, but spending is now amongst the highest in the OECD; the structure of assistance is also amongst the most progressive in the OECD in the extent to which assistance is directed to low income families with children; and relative to many other countries a very high proportion of assistance is provided in the form of cash transfers rather than as tax reductions or in the form of government services. The system is relatively effective in terms of the extent to which it reduces child poverty, but in common with a number of other English-speaking countries there is a relatively high proportion of families with children where no parent is in paid employment. 
This paper addresses the question whether – given the substantial resources now devoted to family assistance in Australia – there are ways to reform family programmes to better achieve their fundamental objectives.  The paper reviews a number of policy areas, including the effectiveness of the system in preventing and alleviating child poverty, the reconciliation of parents caring responsibilities with employment, and the balance between support through cash payments, taxation support and services.

Andrew Cherlin - Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Professor Cherlin has published widely on the sociology of families and public policy. He is an eminent scholar on many aspects of family life and relationships, particularly marriage and divorce, and issues such as the well-being of parents and children in low-income families and the changing nature of marriage and family life over the past century. In 2003 he received the Distinguished Career Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association.

Multiple Partnerships: Their Causes and Consequences for Adults and Children?

Wednesday 9 July 2008, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
Auditorium

Over the past few decades, rising rates of cohabitation, persistent if somewhat lower rates of marriage, and high rates of partnership dissolution have combined to increase greatly the number of cohabiting and marital partnerships over the average adult’s lifetime. 
This change has been most noticeable in the United States, where rates of multiple partnerships are probably the highest of any wealthy nation. Comparative data,  however, suggest that rates of multiple partnerships in Australia, while not as high as in the U.S., are substantial.  Some speculations on the causes of this trend in the United States will be presented. 
The implications for the adult life-course will be examined. And the consequences for children’s well-being of experiencing a series of parents’ partners entering and exiting the household will be discussed.  The presentation will conclude with some thoughts about the appropriate public policy response.

Ruth Weston - General Manager (Research) at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne, Australia. For more than 25 years, Ruth has been conducting research extensively at the Australian Institute of Family Studies on family transitions and wellbeing in Australia. This has included couple and family formation, fertility decision-making, parent-adolescent relationships, and relationship breakdown - particularly the emotional and financial consequences of marriage breakdown. Her research contributed to the initial development—as well as recent amendments to—the Child Support Scheme in Australia.

Families Through Life: Complications, Risks And Opportunities

Thursday 10 July 2008, 11.30am – 1.00pm
Auditorium

While life may never seem to be particularly easy, many of the difficulties that elderly people are likely to have encountered over the course of their lives appear to be markedly different from those that are experienced by younger generations today.
Today’s life is full of “busy-ness”, entailing multiple roles and responsibilities within and outside family. The pace of social, economic and technological development over the last few decades has been unprecedented – and the pace of our own lives is considerably faster than that experienced in previous times. In addition, traditional family life milestones are less obvious, and the course that family life takes today is far less predictable than in the past, with some “stages” such as leaving home and partnering being repeated for large numbers of the population.  
In short, our lives are very complicated.  These complications may be seen as both risks and opportunities.  This paper focuses on family life complications in this “land of droughts and flooding rains” with its ageing population and areas of social division.  Particular attention is given to repercussions of couple relationship trajectories – including repercussions for grandparents and for those holding step relationships. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the means by which risks may be transformed into opportunities, and with recommendations regarding future research directions.

The Panel Sessions

Social Inclusion

Thursday 10 July 2008, 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Social inclusion policy frameworks have been adopted in the UK and Europe since the second half of the 1990s. In Australia, the interest in social inclusion or exclusion has been more recent, although clearly there has been a long standing interest in assisting disadvantaged groups. The Australian Government has recently established the Australian Social Inclusion Board and a Social Inclusion Unit in the Department of the Prime Minster and Cabinet. This session on social inclusion brings together an eminent group of panellists who will discuss the application of social inclusion policies in the Australian context.

Panellists:
Rhonda Parker, Commissioner for Ageing
John Pascoe AO, Chief Federal Magistrate
Muriel Bamblett, AM, Chair, Secretariat of National Aboriginal Inslander Child Care (NSAICC)
Tony Nicholson, Executive Director, Brotherhood of St Laurence
Serena Wilson, First Assistant Secretary, Social Policy Division, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Work and Family

Friday 11 July 2008, 11:00am – 12:30pm

How families balance work and family life and the role that governments can play in assisting is a hotly debated topic. An eminent group of panellists has been assembled who will provide their perspectives on key issues affecting work and family balance.

Panellists:
Willem Adema, Senior Economist, Social Policy Division, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Directorate for Employment, Labour & Social Affairs Paris
Elizabeth Broderick, Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Commissioner responsible for Age Discrimination
Grant Fitzner, Chief Economist and Director of Analytical Services 
Department for Communities and Local Government (UK Government)
Susie Babani, Group General Manager, Human Resources (ANZ)
Sharon Burrow, President, Australian Council of Trade Unions
Liza Carroll, First Assistant Secretary, Office of Work + Family, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.