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Tag: Eliza Littleton

  • The Case for Investing in Public Schools

    Education & Training, Tax, Spending & the Budget

    The Case for Investing in Public Schools

    The Economic and Social Benefits of Public Schooling in Australia
    by Eliza Littleton, Fiona Macdonald and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Jim Stanford

    Media release



    Report Reveals True Potential of Fully Funded Public Schools

    Education has long been recognised as a vital determinant of both personal life chances and broader economic and social performance.

    Public schools play a critical role in ensuring access to educational opportunity for Australians from all economic and geographical communities.

    Public schools are accessible to everyone. They provide a vital ‘public good’ service in ensuring universal access to the education that is essential for a healthy economy and society.

    However, inadequate funding for public schools – measured by persistent failure to meet minimum resource standards established through the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) – is preventing students in public schools from fulfilling their potential. Growing evidence (including the latest NAPLAN testing results) attests to declining student completion and achievement in Australia, with major and lasting consequences for students, their families and communities, and the economy.

    In this new report, Centre for Future Work researchers Eliza Littleton, Fiona Macdonald, and Jim Stanford document the large economic and social benefits of stronger funding for public schools. The report measures three broad channels of benefits:

    1. The immediate economic footprint of public schools, including direct and indirect jobs in schools, the education supply chain, and downstream consumer industries.
    2. The labour market and productivity gains resulting from a more educated workforce.
    3. Social and fiscal benefits arising from the fact that school graduates tend to be healthier, require less support from public income programs, and are less likely to be engaged with the criminal justice system.

    Citing international and Australian evidence regarding the scale of these three channels of benefit, the report estimates that funding public schools consistent with the SRS would ultimately generate ongoing economic and fiscal benefits two to four times larger than the incremental cost of additional funding. For governments, the fiscal payback from those benefits (via both enhanced revenues and fiscal savings on health, welfare, and criminal justice expenses) would exceed the upfront investments required in meeting the SRS.

    Please see the full report, The Case for Investing in Public Schools: The Economic and Social Benefits of Public Schooling in Australia, by Eliza Littleton, Fiona Macdonald, and Jim Stanford.



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    Report Reveals True Potential of Fully Funded Public Schools

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  • Public Attitudes on Issues in Higher Education

    Education & Training, Public Sector, Procurement & Privatisation

    Public Attitudes on Issues in Higher Education

    Corporatised Model for Australian Universities is Eroding Public Trust, Education Quality
    by Eliza Littleton

    Author

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Stronger public universities are vital to the success of dynamic, innovative economies, and more inclusive labour markets. But decades of fiscal restraint and corporatization have eroded the democratic governance and equitable delivery of public higher education in Australia. There are widespread concerns among both university staff and the broader Australian community regarding many higher education issues: including funding, governance, the insecurity of work in universities, the quality of education, and the affordability of attending university.

    This report, by Senior Economist Eliza Littleton, combines data from the Department of Education, the OECD, and original survey data from a national poll conducted by the Centre for Future Work to draw attention to key challenges facing public universities today. The Federal Government’s new ‘Universities Accord’ creates an important opportunity to address these challenges and put higher education back on a better path.



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  • Commonwealth Budget 2023-24

    Macroeconomics

    Commonwealth Budget 2023-24

    Significant Progress for Workers, Much More to Do
    by Greg Jericho, Fiona Macdonald, Eliza Littleton, Charlie Joyce and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Greg Jericho

    Chief Economist

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Charlie Joyce

    Researcher

    Jim Stanford

    The Commonwealth government’s 2023-24 budget reveals a progressive government seeking to help lower paid workers and those struggling to pay bills, support public health care, and pursue investments towards a net zero economy. But it is very much a first step, and leaves much more work to be done to repair past harms done to workers, low-income Australians, public services and infrastructure, and the environment.

    This briefing reviews the main features of the budget from the perspective of workers and labour markets. Some of its measures are very positive, such as fiscal support for higher wages for aged care workers, increased JobKeeper benefits, and enhanced Commonwealth Rent Assistance.

    Contrary to concerns that a big-spending budget would exacerbate inflation, this budget will have little impact on overall aggregate demand. In fact, it will pro-actively reduce inflation through its new $500 energy relief plan. Contrary to conservative economists who claim this budget will fuel inflation, in reality the forecasts confirm historically slow growth in public demand in both 2022-23 and 2023-24.

    Despite these positive measures, the budget also contains disappointing aspects. Most importantly, the Stage 3 tax cuts remain on schedule. And while they are only set to begin in 2024-25, they hang over these budget figures like a dark spectre.

    The budget papers also confirm the economy is far from buoyant. The next 18 months are expected to see economic growth well-below average. Households are reacting to three years of falling real wages, and eleven painful increases in interest rates, by severely constraining consumer spending. Slowing job creation and declining real wages are taking their toll on overall economic growth, highlighting again that the key to a strong economy is strong employment and wage growth.

    Please read our research team’s full review of this historic budget.



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  • Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment

    Education & Training

    Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment

    by Eliza Littleton

    Author

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    As tertiary education has become increasingly essential to employment outcomes, financial security, and meeting the demands of the future economy, the importance of affordable or free tertiary education increases. Instead, education is getting more expensive. Tuition fees have increased significantly since their introduction, and debts are growing and taking longer to repay. The context of high inflation and declining real wages HELP indexation and low repayment thresholds are putting an unnecessary financial burden on already disadvantaged Australians. The Government should consider abolishing indexation on educational loans and increasing the threshold for repayments.



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  • The Times They Aren’t A-Changin (enough)

    Gender at Work

    The Times They Aren’t A-Changin (enough)

    It is past time to value women’s work equally
    by Eliza Littleton and Greg Jericho

    Authors

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Greg Jericho

    Chief Economist

    Media release



    Women Earn $1m less than men & $136,000 Less in Super over Working Life

    This report examines the barriers to closing the gender gap by reviewing Australia’s position within the industrial countries of the OECD. The report also uses data from the ABS and the ATO to highlight gender disparities across all levels of income, ranges of occupation and ages, as well as disparities regarding who undertakes the greater share of unpaid work.

    One clear concern is gender segregation, where either men or women dominate an occupation or industry. Men have higher average salaries than women in 95% of all occupations, including those where women dominate the workforce. For example, women account for 99% of all midwives, and yet are paid on average 19% less.

    We identify 80 occupations in which men make up 80% or more of the workforce; these occupations have an average salary above $100,000. In contrast, no occupation where women make up that share of the workforce has such a high average salary. This highlights how segregation has reinforced massive differences in pay.

    The report recommends policies to promote greater access to childcare and parental leave for both parents, family-friendly work practices, and the lifting of wages for industries dominated by women – most urgently in the care sector.



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  • Theft By Any Other Name: Go Home On Time Day 2022

    Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights

    Theft By Any Other Name: Go Home On Time Day 2022

    Unsatisfactory Working Hours and Unpaid Overtime
    by Eliza Littleton and Lily Raynes

    Authors

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Lily Raynes

    Anne Kantor Fellow

    Media release



    Australians Working 6 Weeks Unpaid Overtime, Costing Economy Over $92 Billion: Go Home on Time Day Report

    This year marks the fourteenth annual Go Home on Time Day (GHOTD), an initiative of the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute that shines a spotlight on the maldistribution of working hours and the scale of unpaid overtime worked by Australians.

    Last year’s report focused on working conditions during the pandemic. Since the re-opening of the global economy after pandemic era lockdowns, Australia’s economy and labour market face both new and old challenges. While the unemployment rate is at historic lows, inflation has accelerated, interest rates are rising, and real wages continue to decline. The tighter labour market conditions, combined with strong productivity growth should theoretically place workers in a position to shop around for well-paid secure work. Accordingly, we should be witnessing improvements in working conditions and wages at least keeping up with prices. But this is not what we observe, this myth that a tight labour market will automatically empower workers hides the many diverse realities of working lives in Australia.

    While the labour force participation rate is high, we continue to see growth in non-standard low security employment like labour hire, casual, rolling fixed term, and gig work. While the ‘strong’ labour market conditions may benefit some workers, they are not improving conditions for all, particularly persistently disadvantaged workers like young people, women, first nations workers, and people with disability. Meanwhile, financial dependency on employment remains high as disruptions to global and domestic supply chains cause price hikes for critical products and real wages continue to fall behind, undermining the purchasing power of Australians. This year’s GHOTD focuses on issues Australian workers are experiencing in this economic context.



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  • Call Me Maybe (Not)

    Future of Work, Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights

    Call Me Maybe (Not)

    Working Overtime and A Right To Disconnect in Australia
    by Eliza Littleton and Lily Raynes

    Authors

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Lily Raynes

    Anne Kantor Fellow

    Media release



    Australians Working 6 Weeks Unpaid Overtime, Costing Economy Over $92 Billion: Go Home on Time Day Report

    Working beyond scheduled hours has long been a problem for Australian workers. The nature and scale of overtime has more recently been shaped by the rise in flexible working arrangements and the integration of information and communication technology at work. Checking emails on the weekend, taking multiple-time-zone calls out of hours, and teleconferencing from the dining table have all become familiar experiences amongst workers. This both enabled working from home conditions during the pandemic for a large portion of workers, and accelerated patterns of overtime through the blurring of lines between work and home life.

    The survey results presented in this report show that overtime is a prevalent and systemic issue in Australia, primarily driven by working conditions within the control of employers.

    • Seven in ten (71%) workers reported having performed work outside of scheduled working hours. While only 29% of workers indicated that they have not done overtime.
    • Of those who completed overtime, the largest share performed overtime often, as opposed to sometimes, rarely, or never.
      • Almost half (44%) reported often performing overtime to meet employer expectations, and another 31% performed overtime sometimes.
      • Overtime was fairly evenly spread across industries and occupations, suggesting it is not an isolated issue that can be resolved with a targeted solution.
    • The incidence and frequency of overtime are more common among men, young people, those with full-time jobs, and those in goods producing sectors or working as managers.
    • The most common reasons workers perform overtime were having too much work (36%), followed by staff shortages (28%), less interruptions working outside normal hours (26%), and managers’ or supervisors’ expectations (23%).
    • Over a third of workers (38%) reported that overtime was an expectation in their workplaces.

    Overtime doesn’t come without cost: it has significant consequences for workers, their families, and for society more broadly.

    • The most commonly experienced negative consequences of overtime work were physical tiredness (35%), followed by stress and anxiety (32%), and being mentally drained (31%), each affecting around a third of workers.
    • Over a quarter of workers reported that overtime interfered with their personal life and relationships (27%), and 17% responded that it led to disrupted or unfulfilling non-work time.
    • One in five workers identified that working outside scheduled hours negatively affected their relationship with work; 22% reported reduced motivation to work, and 19% experienced poor job satisfaction.

    Australia has enterprise agreements, modern awards, and national employment standards that are intended to set out limitations on working times. However, the prevalence of overtime suggests that Australia’s industrial relations systems are not properly protecting the boundaries between work and non-work time for many workers. In particular, existing laws have done little to prevent the creep of work into private time, aided by technology. This is why workers, employers, unions, and governments around the world have been looking at how to implement a ‘right to disconnect’.

    Our survey found considerable support amongst Australia workers for a right to disconnect.

    • Six in seven (84%) workers expressed support for the Federal Government to nationally legislate a right to disconnect that directs employers to avoid contacting workers outside of work hours, unless in an emergency.
      • Only 8% opposed the idea of a right to disconnect.

    A right to disconnect could take several forms, and be implemented via different avenues in Australia. Based on international examples and the attitudes of workers in Australia, this report finds that implementing the right within the national employment standards would be the most effective.

    • Four in five (80%) workers thought that a right to disconnect would be effective if legislated in national employment standards, making it the avenue viewed as effective by the most workers.

    This report provides strong evidence for the government to pursue a right to disconnect as a way of limiting the creep of work into non-work time.



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  • The October 2022-23 Commonwealth Budget: A Good Start… But Rocky Times Ahead

    Tax, Spending & the Budget

    The October 2022-23 Commonwealth Budget: A Good Start… But Rocky Times Ahead

    by Greg Jericho, Eliza Littleton, Fiona Macdonald, Lily Raynes and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Greg Jericho

    Chief Economist

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Lily Raynes

    Anne Kantor Fellow

    Jim Stanford

    The new Albanese Labor government has tabled a revised budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year, revising revenue and spending forecasts originally contained in the March budget (from the previous Morrison government), and providing new funding to support several new programs and policies.

    In this review of the budget, our team of Centre for Future Work researchers evaluates the budget’s assumptions and policy measures, from the perspective of workers and labour markets. The budget marks a clear change of emphasis from budgets over the previous decade: including explicit recognition of the need to strengthen wage growth, new funding for vital care sectors, and important investments in diversifying Australia’s industrial base.

    However, the budget also acknowledges the downside risk of a slowing world economy, which could engulf Australia in another recession — just three years after entering the COVID pandemic. Stronger fiscal measures and income supports will be required if the economy does enter a downturn. And deep problems such as falling real wages, entrenched poverty, and gender inequality will require stronger measures than are included in this first budget. Meanwhile, crucial fiscal decisions (including the regressive Stage 3 tax cuts for high-income Australians) have been deferred for a later date.

    In sum, the budget marks a good start on addressing many of Australia’s key economic, social, and environmental challenges. But much more will be needed – and the risking of looming recession will complicate this progress considerably.



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  • At the Crossroads

    Education & Training

    At the Crossroads

    What is the post-COVID future of Australia’s Public universities?
    by Eliza Littleton

    Author

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Media release



    Free Undergraduate Education to Save Universities and Jobs: Report

    Selected media impact

    If the federal government lifts annual higher education spending to 1% of GDP, it could repair the destruction inflicted by the COVID pandemic and make universities more accessible and affordable for all Australians, according to new research from the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute.

    The report analyses the current worrying state of Australia’s higher education sector based on current funding and policy trends, and provides an ambitious national vision for higher education that re-aligns the sector with its public service mission.

    At the Crossroads, authored by Eliza Littleton, identifies seven key policy initiatives including free higher education for domestic students, that if implemented, would put Australia’s public universities on a path toward full revitalisation.

    Key Findings:

    • Delivering free undergraduate education for domestic students, an expanded public research program, thousands of secure jobs, and a new national governance body for the sector would cost an estimated $6.9 billion per year in additional higher education funding. This funding would generate almost 27,000 additional jobs (FTE) in higher education through easing workload pressures, additional researching funding and staffing a new independent higher education agency.
    • Since 2013, Federal Government funding for higher education has declined in real terms by 2.6%, despite a 23% increase in student enrolments.
    • Federal Government funding as a percentage of university revenue has more than halved since the 1980s, declining from 80% in 1989 to only 33% in 2019. In Budget 2022-23, the government forecasts a cut to real university funding of 3.4% over the forward estimates.
    • Universities responded to the pandemic shock with dramatic job cuts. In the 12 months to May 2021, 40,000 jobs in public tertiary education were lost, with 88% of these losses estimated within public universities.
    • The Federal Government’s Job-Ready Graduates reforms result in a reduction in government spending on student learning of $1 billion per year, while student contributions increase $414 million per year.
    • In the face of COVID shocks, sustained international student fee intake combined with reduced teaching costs through online distance education and job cuts have primed universities for healthy surpluses this financial year. Despite that, universities are continuing with measures that further downsize and casualise their workforces,
    • Reduced government spending and university deregulation has led to teaching and learning crisis. Rampant casualisation, short-term contract use, excessive workloads, and wage theft characterise employment arrangements in Australia’s universities.

    The report recommends several measures to revitalise Australia’s public universities:

    • Free undergraduate education for domestic students
    • Adequate public funding for universities
    • Fully-funded research
    • Measures to provide secure employment
    • Improved higher education governance
    • Caps on vice-chancellor salaries; and
    • Transparency in data collection.



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  • Budget Analysis 2022-23

    Tax, Spending & the Budget

    Budget Analysis 2022-23

    A Budget to Get to the May Election – But No Further
    by Greg Jericho, Mark Dean, Eliza Littleton, Fiona Macdonald, Dan Nahum, Alison Pennington, Lily Raynes and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Greg Jericho

    Chief Economist

    Mark Dean

    Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Dan Nahum

    Economist

    Alison Pennington

    Senior Economist

    Lily Raynes

    Anne Kantor Fellow

    Jim Stanford

    The Commonwealth Government has tabled its budget for the 2022-23 financial year. As the nation emerges from two years of lockdowns and border closures, with less than two months until a federal election, this budget is focused on getting the government re-elected – rather than addressing the challenges of public health, stagnant wages, and sustainability facing Australia.

    This failure is all the more regrettable given the enormous discretionary fiscal resources which the government has at its disposal: the budget projects $133 billion in extra tax revenues over the next five years, compared to its MYEFO projections just three months ago, thanks to strong economic growth and rising nominal GDP. But instead of ploughing those revenues into reforming human services (like health, aged care, early child education, or disability services), undertaking a genuine policy to revitalise domestic manufacturing, or accelerating the energy transition, the government has prioritised one-time cash handouts to entice voters in the upcoming election.

    In this comprehensive budget overview, the Centre for Future Work’s team of economists unpacks the budget, considers its effects, and suggests alternatives.

    Our report reviews all aspects of the budget’s impacts on work and workers, including: wages, employment forecasts, vocational education and higher education, women workers and caring labour, labour standards enforcement, and manufacturing and energy jobs.

    Please also check out these rapid-response budget commentaries from two of our economists:

    “Six graphs that reveal the sugar-hit election strategy,” by Policy Director Greg Jericho in the Guardian Australia.

    “Budget billions wasted as real wages go backwards,” by Senior Economist Alison Pennington in The New Daily.



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