Transitions and Risk: New Directions in Social Policy

By Centre for Public Policy, University of Melbourne

The concept of transitional labour markets was first brought to public attention by Günther Schmid in 1996. Since then the conceptual framework has proved its versatility in social analysis and provides a positive alternative to the "third way" approach popularized by Giddens, and spoken of in Australia by the Liberal Party and the ALP. The recent Melbourne conference brought together many researchers and papers on all aspects of "transitions". The following are summaries of a few of those papers, available from the conference website.

The Quality of Part-time Jobs in Australia: Towards an Assessment

Transitions and Portability of Skills: Soft Skills, Task Specific Skills and Older Jobseekers

Inclusive approaches to non-traditional education and training pathways

Fully present and accounted for? Women's transitional work practices

Labour Market Flexibility and Social Protection in the Nordic Countries - Contrasts and Similarities

Transitions? Caught up in the Calculations of Outcomes: Living in Between Income Support and Precarious Employment

Training to Prevent the Exclusion of Older Workers

Social Risk Management Through Transitional Labour Markets: Theory and Practice for German and European experiences

The Problems Facing Older People with a Disability Leaving the Workforce: The Need for Increased Inter-Departmental Co-operation in the Provision of Retirement Solutions for Older Australians with a Significant Disability

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The Quality of Part-time Jobs in Australia: Towards an Assessment

Dr Iain Campbell, Dr Jenny Chalmers, Dr Sara Charlesworth

Part-time work (for women) is often put forward as a solution to the problems of work and family imbalance. This assessment is too shallow. From a more nuanced point of view, which is able to situate the conflict between paid work and caring responsibilities in terms of labour market transitions, it is clear that the quality of the part-time job must be incorporated into any assessment. Poor quality part-time work may worsen problems of work and family imbalance rather than contribute to their solution. Good quality part-time work is the main path forward. This is a preliminary paper from a broader research project. It focuses on introducing the topic and outlining several dimensions - other than just number of hours - that are important in any assessment of part-time jobs.

Transitions and Portability of Skills: Soft Skills, Task Specific Skills and Older Jobseekers

Edgar Carson

One of the many strategies nominated by proponents of transitional labour markets to enable older workers to maintain employability in later life is the development of sophisticated further training systems. Yet a relatively minor element in the literature to date is a consideration of the employee skill sets likely to be sought by employers and their implications for older workers' employment portability.

There is considerable discussion in the literature about the prevalence of "new workplaces" in which downsizing and devolved accountability lead to an emphasis on multi skilling among employees, including the possession of key 'soft skill' competencies. But the implications of this trend for an ageing workforce have not been specified.

This paper reports on a study of recruitment and training practices in three industry sectors - manufacturing, higher education, and health/human services, and their implications for older jobseekers. Comparing and contrasting employer survey responses with detailed interview findings suggests that employers talk soft skills but hire on the basis of task specific skills. The paper reflects on the implications of these issues for the maintenance of employability of older workers and the re-employment prospects of older jobseekers.

Inclusive approaches to non-traditional education and training pathways

Sally James

MCM is committed to exploring inclusive approaches to non-traditional education and training pathways based on models which are accessible, flexible, achievable, accredited and linked to entry and/or re-entry level employment education and training opportunities.

Each year, Melbourne Citymission supports over 500 homeless and disadvantaged young people from the inner city and Western region of Melbourne into employment education and training pathways. The majority of these young people have left school prior to Year 10 and have little or no contact with their immediate family. As a result they have low literacy and numeracy issues, poor personal and life skills and underdeveloped relationships with mainstream pathways options which are often exacerbated by income, housing, legal and health issues.

MCM has recently undertaken a national environmental scan of available accredited pathway program targeted to homeless or at risk young people. The scan suggests that there is no accredited program currently available for this cohort of young people. MCM has successfully delivered a pathway program in which 90% of the young people graduated and 80% remain engaged in a pathway 3 months after completion. The critical factors of its success were as follows:

* Supported referral to the program

* Consensual participation plan

* Coordination between the young person's key support and pathway workers

* Negotiation with Centrelink for approved activity status

* Training content featuring personal development, lifeskills, and group work combined with practical incentives and delivered within an accredited framework

* Flexible delivery incorporating negotiable terms and modes of participation

* On-going discussion, investigation and review and support mainstream pathways options which are linked to local employment education and training opportunities

MCM proposes to share its practice wisdom through a presentation of the critical factors followed by open discussion regarding ways in which to strengthen inclusion and integration of pathways for homeless and at risk young people.

Fully present and accounted for? Women's transitional work practices

Dr JaneMaree Maher and Dr Jo Lindsay

In contemporary Australia paid work is generally presented as incompatible with mothering responsibilities even though most mothers do paid work. Recent research we have conducted on fertility, domestic labour, mothering and paid work suggest that women consistently and routinely transit across these domains. We argue that employed mothers may be best characterised as working in 'permanent' transitional labour markets. We suggest that women may be constructing new and flexible models of mothering and employment that focus on skills, tasks, and time management in response to inflexible social institutions. Rather than experiencing their labour as fragmented, they may use the same skills in a variety of intersecting domains. However, these work strategies developed by women may mask entrenched resistance from governments and employers to really supporting flexible employment.

Labour Market Flexibility and Social Protection in the Nordic Countries - Contrasts and Similarities

Per Kongshøj Madsen

The interrelation between flexibility on the labour market, social protection and social cohesion has - under the label of "flexicurity" - played an increasing role in both the scientific and the political debate on the future trends of the European welfare states and employment policies.

The Danish employment system has been presented as an example of a specific "flexicurity-model" combining a high degree of external numerical flexibility with a well developed system of income support for the unemployed and a high level of social cohesion (Madsen, 2003, 2004). In this sense, the Danish model presents itself as a hybrid between a Nordic welfare state and a liberal regime.

The task of this paper is to further develop this analytical tradition in a comparative study on the interrelation between the labour market and the welfare state in selected European countries, which represent on the one hand Nordic welfare states and on the other hand a liberal welfare regime. The aim is firstly to get a better understanding of the specific traits of the Danish model in a comparative perspective and secondly to further develop concepts and methodological tools for comparative analysis of different models of flexicurity.

Transitions? Caught up in the Calculations of Outcomes: Living in Between Income Support and Precarious Employment

Pendo Mwaiteleke

Recent policy shifts in the governance of the unemployed has seen an increased coupling of the income support system with requirements for 'active' participation through Labour Market Programs. There are also emerging indications that some of the groups at risk from experiences of unemployment are not simply to be found amongst the long-term unemployed. Rather, precarious unemployment appears to be an area of marginality amongst some users of Job Network programs. In this paper, the author argues that the current design of particular key programs delivered through the Job Network scheme, increasingly, deploys mechanisms, which question the notion of transition. The governmental techniques used to measure these LMP outcomes seem to play a part in reducing capacity building options for some of the most disadvantaged participants. For them, the current calculations of outcomes tied up with government's contracting practices make the idea of a transition a far dream. In this paper, attention is paid to the neglect and disincentive tied with coalface interventions, which aim to build capacities. The paper demonstrates the way in which current contracting and program specifications practices encourage calculated outcomes that reinforce long-term participation in casual and precarious employment options. It argues for an appraisal of the calculated techniques of outcome, maintaining that lack of critical attention to the performance techniques in use, runs the danger of maintaining an underclass, perpetually living between the world of precarious forms of employment and income support system.

Training to Prevent the Exclusion of Older Workers

Megan O'Connell

This paper seeks to explore the role of training interventions in preventing the labour market exclusion of older workers. Current public policy debates, which are motivated by ageing population issues, focus on punitive measures to keep people in the workforce or compel them to re-engage. These debates fail to address the issue that many older workers retire involuntarily, either through industry restructuring or through developing a disability. Recent research highlights the role that training can play in keeping mature age workers in the workforce longer through an early intervention approach. Early intervention training may enable older people to move between industries and employers as economic changes or health reasons necessitate. However, a lack of information exists around what types of training interventions should be employed, including how these interventions should be funded. In this paper, I will be examining the Finnish work-ability project, Swedish individual learning accounts and British skills shortages strategy, to highlight the various types of interventions that could help reduce the labour market exclusion of older workers in Australia.

Social Risk Management Through Transitional Labour Markets: Theory and Practice for German and European experiences

Günther Schmid

This essay takes the intrusion of the term 'risk management' into the social policy discourse as a 'moral opportunity' to reconsider the balance between solidarity and individual responsibility. The argument is developed in three steps: First, the psychology of intuitive beliefs and choices reminds to the bounded rationality of risky choices. The paper demonstrates how the institutionalisation of opportunity structures recommended by the concept of transitional labour markets (TLM) can overcome various kinds of asymmetries in risk perception. Second, imperfect or strategic information may also cause biased risk perception. Examples, therefore, are provided how the analysis of labour market transitions throughout the life course can considerably improve the methodology of risk management. Third, the consideration of risk asymmetries and the reduction of information deficits do not yet provide clues for acceptable institutions of risk sharing. Normative principles of justice therefore have to be reconsidered. It is suggested extending Rawls' theory of justice by Dworkin's ethical theory, enriched by Sen's capability approach.

The Problems Facing Older People with a Disability Leaving the Workforce: The Need for Increased Inter-Departmental Co-operation in the Provision of Retirement Solutions for Older Australians with a Significant Disability

Mathew Fante

Unfortunately, until very recently, discussions of the life choices for older people with significant congenital, acquired or early onset disabilities have too often been informed by negative stereotypes of ageing superimposed on negative stereotypes of disability.

The identification of an interface between policy issues relating to ageing and disability is now receiving a good deal of attention from policy makers due to the increase in the number of older Australians and of people with disabilities and the realisation by governments that both groups could make large demands on the public purse.

Research carried out in 1995 as part of the evaluation of the Commonwealth /State Disability Agreement (CSDA) and published in 6 Supporting Papers along with the Interim Report in January 1996, recorded the first interest in issues related to disability and ageing at the national level. The study noted problematic linkages and transition points for people with disabilities, among them the move from employment to retirement, and between disability services and aged care services. Further work in this area by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has shown that many older adults with a disability are falling through the gaps in service provision. They may be perceived as 'old' or unsuitable by disability services but too 'young' and/or unsuitable by aged care service.

The NSW Department of Ageing, Disability & Homecare (DADHC), like its various State and Territory equivalents, is paying increasing attention to this issue given the ageing profile of people with disabilities and the subsequent demand this is placing on State funded accommodation support services and day activity programs needing to provide day-time supports for an increasing number of people with a disability leaving open and supported employment.

In recognition of the challenges facing older workers with a disability and their families DADHC is currently funding a pilot project in the Southern region of NSW called the Daily Activity Linking Initiatives (DALI). The aim of the project is to facilitate the transition for older people with a disability leaving the workforce into meaningful daytime activities. The project is a collaboration between DADHC, two local governments and two non-government service providers.

The paper will look at the efficacy of the model currently used in the DALI project, problems facing the project and the wider issue of suitable service models for older people with a disability moving from the workforce into retirement.