Housing consumption patterns and earnings behaviour of income support recipients over time: analysis of FaCS Longitudinal Data Set (1 per cent sample)

Summary

This project examines the labour force participation of housing assistance recipients over time. Analysis of the Department of Family and Community Services Longitudinal Data Set allows tracking of the movement in and out of the labour force of housing assistance recipients, as well as changes in hours in work, income and the receipt of pensions and benefits.

Project Number: 20257
Research Theme: Housing Policies and Programs
Project Leader: Seelig, Tim
Funding Year: 2004
Research Centre: Queensland

Description

This research is centrally concerned with the interaction of the income support and public housing systems in shaping movements in and out of the labour-force.

Key Issues: Increased labour-force participation among income support recipients is a key objective of Commonwealth social policy and welfare reform (welfare to work), and is also an important consideration to the States and Territories.· Governments need to fully understand the most effective ways in which housing assistance can be delivered, and in particular how different forms of assistance could be designed and targeted at specific population groups. Gaining insights into how forms of assistance appear to influence behaviour in the areas of earnings, housing consumption, location (or alternatively how housing assistance usage or housing consumption is shaped by earnings or other factors) is also crucial to this. Public housing reform remains a key policy concern in Commonwealth-State relations, and the 2003 CSHA provides the Commonwealth with the capacity to levy a 5% funding penalty if ‘workforce disincentives’ (perceived to be connected to rent-setting formulae) are not removed from public housing.

All this adds up to significant importance being attached to better understanding the interaction of housing consumption patterns and housing assistance measures, such as the provision of public housing and Rent Assistance to private renters, with the earnings capacity and behaviour of income support recipients. Analysis of longitudinal income support data provides an excellent opportunity to examine such interactions at several different levels.

Focus of the research: The proposed research aims to analyse the ‘housing careers’ and ‘life circumstances’ of income support recipients, by studying data pertaining to their housing, earnings and income support arrangements drawn from the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) Longitudinal Data Set (LDS). The research is centrally concerned with the interaction of the income support and public housing systems. Analysis of the FaCS longitudinal dataset, via the one percent sample standardised extraction, will allow primary analysis of income support data, which also provides the means of tracking broad housing consumption patterns during the time a client is in receipt of income support payments from Centrelink. The study will provide a fascinating insight into how a significant component of the population on statutory or low incomes behaves with regards to housing consumption over time.

The research will potentially be extremely useful to the Commonwealth and to SHAs because it will:

• provide analysis of data previously unexplored for the purposes of tracking the housing consumption patterns and earnings behaviour of income support recipients over time;
• provide important information, complementary to other research past and forthcoming, which examines questions about workforce incentives and disincentives associated with public housing occupancy; and
• help further identify who is in need of what forms of assistance, and what sorts of housing products are most effective and appropriate for specific groups of income support recipients based on an analysis of behaviour with regard to changes in earnings, labour force participation and tenure.

More Information

Research and Policy Bulletin: Issue 103: What are the housing tenure pathways of income support recipients over time?
197 KB PDF Document

Final Report: No. 118: Housing consumption patterns and earnings behaviour of income support recipients over time
1.12 MB PDF Document

Positioning Paper: No. 085: Housing consumption patterns & earnings behaviour of income support recipients over time
1.8 MB PDF Document

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