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Identifying Important Factors for Closing the Gap in Labour Force Status between Indigenous and Non‐Indigenous A ustralians
Author(s) -
Kalb Guyonne,
Le Trinh,
Hunter Boyd,
Leung Felix
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
economic record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1475-4932
pISSN - 0013-0249
DOI - 10.1111/1475-4932.12142
Subject(s) - indigenous , closing (real estate) , demographic economics , gender gap , labour economics , economics , ecology , biology , finance
Despite substantial policy efforts to promote economic participation by I ndigenous A ustralians, they continue to have low participation rates compared with non‐ I ndigenous A ustralians. This study decomposes the gap in labour market attachment between I ndigenous and non‐ I ndigenous A ustralians in non‐remote areas, combining two separate data sources in a novel way to obtain access to richer information than was previously possible. It shows that among women over 90 per cent of the gap can be attributed to differences in the observed characteristics between the two populations. For men, the differences in observed characteristics can account for 44–52 per cent of the gap. A detailed decomposition shows that lower education, worse health, and larger families (particularly for women) explain the lower labour market attachment of I ndigenous A ustralians to a substantial extent. Compared with previous studies, this study is able to explain a larger proportion of the gap in employment between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous people and hence provides greater insights into important factors for ‘Closing the gap’ policies.