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Leaving the Australian Labor Force: An Extended Encounter with the State
Author(s) -
Castles Francis G.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.46
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1468-0491
pISSN - 0952-1895
DOI - 10.1111/0952-1895.331997033
Subject(s) - welfare state , argument (complex analysis) , subsidy , state (computer science) , welfare , presentational and representational acting , economics , public policy , social policy , labour economics , public economics , political science , market economy , economic growth , politics , biochemistry , chemistry , philosophy , algorithm , computer science , law , aesthetics
This article seeks to demonstrate the way in which labor market choices are shaped by institutional arrangements devised by the state. Since these arrangements differ markedly from country to country, much that is distinctive about national labor market outcomes is a function of diverse encounters with the state. This argument is illustrated by an account that explains why Australia, a country which apparently devotes little in the way of public resources to the old, manifests an exceptionally high level of early retirement. This account shows that, in contrast to the standard European welfare state strategy of public pensions, the Australian state has over many decades tackled the need for provision for the old by encouraging retirement strategies that are not subsidized directly from the public purse. These strategies include the encouragement of widely dispersed home ownership and occupational pensions. Read broadly, the article suggests that the extremity of contrasts frequently made between the advanced welfare states of Western Europe and the miserable social policy outcomes in the democracies of the New World have been far too extreme. The article experiments with novel presentational techniques designed to focus attention on individual choices and on policy outcomes for the individual rather than policy outputs by governments.