No abstract

It is widely believed that domestic outsourcing is booming. Many believe the growth of market services is a response to increasing time pressures arising from new responsibilities in the paid workforce, and to an inflexible sexual division of labour at home. The interpretation of the consequences of the purported growth of domestic outsourcing has been both divided and extreme. Paid domestic services have been declared: (1) a thing of the pre-industrial past (Coser 1973); (2) a victim of self-servicing (Gershuny 1983); and (3) the last frontier in the continuing advance of the market in post-industrial society (Ruthven 1994). Consequently, the alleged boom in outsourcing has been viewed either as the resurgence of a pre-modern form of the exploitation of labour (possibly based on race or ethnicity), heralding a deeper and more intractable form of social stratification (Arat-Koç 1989; Glenn 1992; Gorz 1994; Gregson and Lowe 1994; Probert 1997; Romero 1992), or as the future engine of opportunity (Ruthven 1997). Unfortunately all this discussion has run ahead of the facts. Two areas of research are vital - one is a study of the demand for outsourced domestic goods and services, and the other is wide-ranging comparative study of the labour relations in the domestic outsourcing industry. This paper addresses the first of these areas. It describes a study of trends in expenditure on domestic outsourcing drawing on an analysis of Australian Household Expenditure Surveys 1984-1993/4. This information is then interpreted in the light of our knowledge of trends in time use over the same period.

The series is indebted to Diana Encel for her continuing editorial contribution. As with all of the Centre's publications, the views expressed in this DISCUSSION PAPER do not reflect any official position on the part of the Centre.

The subjective poverty line methodology derives a poverty line from responses to a question asking people how much money they need in order to make ends meet. In this paper, we explore the relevance and implications of this approach using sample survey data for Australia and Sweden derived specifically for this purpose. We apply identical techniques to the two sets of data and compare and contrast the resulting poverty lines, before exploring their sensitivity to changes in the methods used to derive them. Finally, analysis focuses on a companson of the characteristics of those families in each country whose incomes are below the subjective poverty line.

Social security policy towards unemployed people in Australia has become increasingly conditional on their demonstrating ever greater job search effort. The evidence from attitudinal survey data on whether this policy shift accords with public opinion is ambiguous. Although, by international standards, Australians take a relatively hard line on the responsibilities of unemployed people lo actively seek work, there is little information about views on the detail of activity testing. While a majority oppose greater public expenditure on unemployment, they still see an important role, for government in addressing unemployment and supporting unemployed people.