Alfred Michael Dockery

This paper looks at the role of Individuals’ membership in clubs and associations in promoting social connections and building social capital in Australia. Using panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, around one-third of working-age Australians are found to be club members, with membership rates declining over this century. A principal component analysis of a set of variables relating to people’s social interactions identifies two distinct forms of social interaction: connectedness with family, friends, and neighbours, and civic engagement in community organisations and causes. Club membership is positively associated with both forms of social interaction and does appear to provide a form of social capital in the sense that it is independently associated with success in securing employment, although we cannot empirically establish that relationship as causal. While the two forms of social interaction appear to align with Putnam’s concepts of ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital, their effects on labour market outcomes call for a more nuanced interpretation. We propose that civic engagement may represent a form of social activism which crowds out job search connections and activities.

There is overwhelming evidence of a positive association between education and objective quality-of-life measures, demonstrating pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns to individuals and both private and external economic benefits to societies. However, early research produced inconsistent evidence that education translates into higher subjective wellbeing. As researchers explore possible explanations, the emerging literature suggests that the association between education and subjective wellbeing is far more nuanced and complex than has been assumed and encompasses a range of direct and indirect dynamics. Two key explanations appear salient. First, investing in education is costly, and is subject to diminishing returns at both the social and individual levels. Second, education has the capacity to change not only our objective circumstances but also our subjective evaluations of these same circumstances. The benefits of education will differ across individuals, different types of education will have differential effects, and education has different impacts on the separate domains of subjective wellbeing. Along with the confounding role of education on expectations, aspirations, and reference points, not enough is known about these relationships. Explorations of education and how it impacts subjective evaluations of wellbeing, particularly through conduits such as development of resilience and psychological skills, will contribute to policy-making.

Cultural practices and development level can influence a population’s household structures and mixing patterns. Within some populations, households can be organized across multiple dwellings. This likely affects the spread of infectious disease through these communities; however, current demographic data collection tools do not record these data. Methods: Between June and October 2018, the Contact And Mobility Patterns in remote Aboriginal Australian communities (CAMP-remote) pilot study recruited Aboriginal mothers with infants in a remote northern Australian community to complete a monthly iPad-based contact survey. Results: Thirteen mother–infant pairs (participants) completed 69 study visits between recruitment and the end of May 2019. Participants reported they and their other children slept in 28 dwellings during the study. The median dwelling occupancy, defined as people sleeping in the same dwelling on the previous night, was ten (range: 3.5–25). Participants who completed at least three responses (n = 8) slept in a median of three dwellings (range: 2–9). Each month, a median of 28% (range: 0–63%) of the participants travelled out of the community. Including these data in disease transmission models amplified estimates of infectious disease spread in the study community, compared to models parameterized using census data. Conclusions: The lack of data on mixing patterns in populations where households can be organized across dwellings may impact the accuracy of infectious disease models for these communities and the efficacy of public health actions they inform.

Cultural practices and development level can influence a population’s household structures and mixing patterns. Within some populations households can be organized across multiple dwellings. This likely affects the spread of infectious disease spreads through these communities, however, current demographic data collection tools do not record these data. Methods: Between June–October 2018, the Contact And Mobility Patterns in remote Aboriginal Australian communities (CAMP-remote) pilot study recruited Aboriginal mothers with infants in a remote northern Australian community to complete a monthly iPad-based contact survey. Results: Thirteen mother-infant pairs (participants) completed 69 study visits between recruitment and the end of May 2019. Participants reported they and their other children slept in 28 dwellings during the study. The median dwelling occupancy, defined as people sleeping in the same dwelling on the previous night, was nine (range: 3.5–25). Participants who completed at least three responses (n=8) slept in a median of three dwellings (range: 2–9). Each month a median of 28% (range: 0%–63%) of the participants travelled out of the community. Including these data in disease transmission models amplified estimates of infectious disease spread in the study community, compared to models parameterized using census data. Conclusions: The lack of data on mixing patterns in populations where households can be organized across dwellings may negatively impact the accuracy of infectious disease models for these communities and the efficacy of public health actions they inform.

The role of parental expectations in determining children's higher education participation is important in understanding both participation and potential policy responses. Using a nationally representative longitudinal survey of Australian households, providing repeat observations on expectations for individual children, this study extends the literature in several respects. First, it examines the adaptation of parental expectations over a 4‐year time frame. Second, it looks at how parental expectations for school children are associated with actual higher education outcomes in the future. Third, the longitudinal aspect of the dataset permits more robust analyses of factors that shape parental expectations. The findings indicate that parental expectations of their children's attendance at university are generally stable across time. Perceptions of children's academic achievement at school are shown to be the key influence in shaping parents' expectations, and behavioural issues at school adversely affect expectations. Australian parents from non‐English‐speaking backgrounds were more likely to form positive expectations of university participation by their children, consistent with studies from other countries. A more nuanced picture of the formation of expectations for sole‐parent mothers is also presented. Positive effects of parental education and children's enrolment in a private school on parents' expectations, over and above any effect on school achievement, highlight these socioeconomic factors as potential causal channels for the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic outcomes.