Asian Single Parent Migrant Families NSW Australia - Case Study Example

Running Head: POLICY PAPER ON ASIAN SINGLE PARENT MIGRANT FAMILIES NSW AUSTRALIA Name: Institution: Date: Policy Paper on Asian single parent migrant families NSW Executive Summary Since the early 1990’s the Government of Australian “liberal welfare regimes” have been treating sole parents as “workers”, forgetting that they are carers as well. This has been ongoing and especially with the current situation of panic concerning the development of policies that would help investment in children and protecting them from the world of Adults. This paper highlights the recent policy reforms dubbed “Welfare to work” in relation to the plight of Asian and Chinese migrant lone parents in St. George NSW Australia by a social worker at the ST. George Migrant Resource Center. The paper looks at the position of these vulnerable groups under the current policy in terms of their populations and demographics and compares them with other groups. The paper also briefly looks at the role of the government at local regional and state levels in this policy and gives recommendations on the changes that should or that can make it possible for the government to attain its goal of taking sole parents off welfare support. This paper looks at two major contradictions which exist in the current policy namely; the intended outcomes of the WTW reforms on one side and the current outcomes which have become a major area of research. It also looks at an emergent issue within migrant groups namely, the cultural aspect which has so far not been part of the policy agenda. It is clear that many sole parents of Asian origin in Australia are not very well educated and believe that their role as women is solely to take care of their children and the family while depending on their families to support them and this has largely contributed to the problems that face them under the current policy in Australia. This paper also looks at the poverty aspect among these groups in relation to the current policy Focus Group Single parent families increase in proportion with general increase in the number of families and especially when it comes to families with children who are aged below 15 years for the better part of the period spanning twenty years since 1986. In the last few years, the numbers of families headed by lone parents that have children under the age of 15 has decreased to some extent but they still account for about a fifth of all the families with children falling under that age bracket. During the 2004 to 2006 period, there were an average 486,000 single parent families (UNICEF, 2007.pg 25-55). Out of these, 17 percent were of Immigrant origins such as Asia and China. This section will look at the characteristics of Asian/ Chinese migrant sole parent families in relation to Australia and specifically in St. George, their population, demographics, the extent to which the policies that have to do with welfare support have affected them in Australia and the currency of their plight in terms of socio economic policy. It will also compare them with other similar groups but of native origins (Katz & Redmond, 2009. pg 1-10). Population This study focuses on migrant Asian and Chinese sole parent families in St. George NSW Australia which has been a subject of great interest to organizations such as the St. George NSW Australia which is a community based organization offering services to communities in the area and specifically migrants and other groups such as refugees to mention but a few hence the interest in the subject of policies that affect these groups. Demographics of lone parent Asian/ Chinese Families in St. George NSW Australia In St. George NSW Australia, the population of Asians is about 60,010 and considering that the average number of family members in Australia is 1.8 averagely there were about 30,000 families of Asian origin in this area (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012. WebPage 1). This is according to 2006 Australian census. Out of the 2 million immigrants in Australia, about 55% percent of immigrant families are from Asia and the Pacific, specifically China, Philippines and Vietnam while 32% are from South Asia. Out of the 30,000 Asian families, about 40.8% of the Asian families are single parent households headed by mothers and only 3.5 % of these are single parent families headed by fathers. 12.8% of Chinese families are single parent households headed by mothers while 3.2% of them are headed by fathers (Australian Bureau of statistics CATALOGUE NO. 4102.0, 2007. pg 1-12). Extent of Issues The increase in sole parent families in St. George NSW and Australia in general is a reflection of important community and official changes that have been taking place in the marriage institution. There lies therein an implication that women have an increasing desire to advance their socio-economic status and to build an independent status. These changes also show that the labor force restructurings that have occurred in Australia since 1970 are what have significantly led to great changes in employment policies (OECD, 1990. pg. 21-25). However, as these demographic and social changes occurred, the contiguous employment structures, wages and even social security agreements were not adequate enough to cater for the needs of sole parent families and especially those families that are headed by migrant women of Asian and Chinese origin who are barred by traditions from working and who depend on their families for survival. This has led to an increase in poverty levels among sole parent families and more so among Asian and Chinese sole parent families who have often been very vulnerable when it comes to poverty levels (Cass, 1988. pg 1-10). Currency Since the late 1960’s the numbers of not only migrant lone parent households but of the entire lone parent household with a dependent child aged between 0-14 years have increased steadily in percentage. By 1969, about 7.1% of lone parent families with a dependent child or children existed and were mainly headed by mothers. By the year 2003, the figure had reached 22.3%. Lone parent families have generally increased as a percentage of the general population of such families. The steady increase in percentage from 6.5% in 1976 to 8.6% in 1981fluctuating all the way to 10.7% in 2000 caused great concern for the government of Australia which has come up with plans to control the amounts of revenue that go into supporting these families in terms of welfare as well as child support through such programs as the “Welfare to Work (WTW) reforms” (Aronowitz, 1984. pg 200-257). Comparison with other single parent households When compared with native lone parent families, Asian and Chinese sole parent families are deemed to be at a higher risk of experiencing shortcomings. For instance, in income, employment, housing and social participation because they tend to have lower education levels that the average lone parent due to their conservative cultures which allow them to leave school at very tender ages and get married and which also have then depended solely on their extended families for survival and bar them from gaining any non-skills that would help them engage in meaningful employment activities. Compared with other groups such as the native partnered parents, it is evident that the native partnered parents tend to have attained higher education levels such as bachelor’s degree or even higher (Blaxland, 2009. pg 1-11). The same situation has been witnessed over the years when it comes to employment levels. Current Policy Situation This section is an outline of the development of policies for lone parents within the Australian social security system and recent policy changes that have been introduced by the government regarding this issue under “Welfare to Work”. It is an explanation of the recent changes that have occurred. A lot of single–parent homes in Australia rely greatly on the Government for both social security expenditure and child support for survival. From the year 2006 up to 2008, major restructurings occurred in the area of the appropriate prerequisites that single parents should attain in order for them to be able to access income support, known as the “Welfare to Work (WTW) reforms”. These reforms also included the calculations for child support. These recent developments in policy reforms towards lone parents have been especially targeted at shaping the role of employment in order to increase income and self competence (Millar & Rowlingson, 2001. pg. 13-18). One of the main reasons as to why Australian policy makers have sought to increase the employment rates of lone mothers is concern about welfare dependency. The saying that there is need for some persuasion or external pressure on people receiving income support in order to make them find employment is not an uncommon one in this matter and the objective of increasing rates of paid employment and decreasing the rates of “welfare dependency has dominated the policy arena in Australia in the past few years. Australia has a relatively low rate of employment amongst lone mothers and there is a tendency for lone mothers to spend a very long time in their lives in reception of government payments. According to Gregory, Australia also has had very high rates of long term benefit dependency than previously thought (Gregory, 2002. pg. 12-20). With the current shift in policy, “Welfare to Work” which focuses on employment has become very widespread in Australia and is very crucial to especially those who find it difficult to find employment because of lack of proper educational qualification, lack of work experience and even health problems. Local, regional and the state government have taken up various approaches as to the means through which “Welfare-to-Work programs are being administered. Besides the “Welfare-to-work” programs, there is also the child support regime which was established on a basis of two important factors of improving the living standards of children and reducing the burden of costs of support to single parents for the taxpayers. Many changes in the social security payments have been made which were directly linked to the child support scheme specifically the “Family Tax Benefits” (FTB) payments. The objectives of the current child support reforms are; sharing the real costs of children in a fair way between parents and the new social structure. Both the WTW and the child support programs are focused at reducing the welfare bill in the light of projected rates of social welfare dependency and the ageing population in Australia but despite the significant of these combined efforts in support of disadvantaged often low income sole parent families, the crossroads of the reforms have not yet been fully measured. The initial concerns as to why the reforms were introduced in the first place are still there and the n umbers of sole parent families has continued to increase with a corresponding decrease in partnered parents families (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007. 1-12). This increase is even projected to continue into the future with the current 5:1 ratio of female headed sole parent families to male headed sole parent families expected to continue up to 2026. Australian sole parents continue to suffer financial strains as far as household income and net worth are concerned. They also continue to wallow in poverty and deprivation (Saunders, Naidoo, & Griffiths, 2007. pg 1-18). Despite the significant improvements that the WTW and Child support have had on sole parent families, the Australian Government did not conduct conclusive consultations over the design of the package; the government did not even release the discussion paper or its equivalent or even call for submissions or provide for an appropriate period for consultation with stakeholders. Besides this, the reforms changed the nature of support entitlements with sole parent with dependent children aged 16 who were previously eligible for support being excluded from the Parenting Payment Single (PPS). Today, only single parents with children under the age of 8 years are eligible for PPS except on special cases. Although single parent families with older children are able to access an enhanced “new start Allowance” (NSA) until their youngest child reaches age 16, they are required to meet certain eligibility requirements such as “work participation” which makes it really difficult for them and especially women headed sole parent families of Asian and Chinese households and this places them in a very difficult situation. “The changes in eligibility for PPS and NSA impacts on the maximum payment rates, income test and payment cut-off levels for tax offsets for local, state and regional governments” (Summerfield, et al, 2010. pg 1-11). Single parents are still eligible for concessions and income appendage including pensioner concession card but after the reforms, they are only able to qualify for fewer pensioner concessions and supplementary benefits. These are some of the impacts of the welfare-to-work reforms and worse still, in increasing the workforce participation hours of beneficiaries is based on the assumption that all single parents are capable of working for a minimum of 15 hours every week once the youngest child reaches age eight when these parents are supposed to perform job search obligations in order to remain eligible for support Government involvement The issue of policy related to sole parent welfare has mainly been left in the hands of the state Government in Australia which has led to a generalization of policies that deal with family welfare and exclusion of special groups such as Asian migrant sole parent who are the subject of this paper and even specific areas such as St. George NSW Australia. There is a greater need for inclusion of these groups through decentralization. Effects of the reforms on Asian and Chinese migrant sole parent families The reforms may act to increase rather than decrease the extent of poverty levels among Asian and Chinese sole parent families. State support to single parent families has reduced and at the same time child support has reduced as well for these groups and especially female headed sole parent families who are the most vulnerable due to the difficulties that they face in finding work and juggling family and work due to their responsibilities as mother as well as lack of the right skills that would qualify them for better jobs and better incomes at that. The poverty levels among sole parent households have not been improved by meeting the requirements for eligibility for WTW workforce involvement either (Cox & Priest, 2008. pg 43-51). Asian and Chinese sole parents who are mainly female are also largely limited to casual and part time employment which does not pay well at , due to their family care responsibilities, a level where the biggest reductions in income decrease as a result of the reforms. The labor incomes for these levels also attracted very small incomes hour (Workplace Authority, 2009. pg 7-10). The parents who are likely to benefit are those in private income levels because they are able to work longer hours during school hours, about 25 hours at about $ 15-20 but mothers who perform unskilled part-time or casual work are not able to do so considering their educational disadvantages. The reforms have (Summerfield et al, 2010. pg 1-11) therefore further worsened the situation of these financially vulnerable groups. According to Fehlberg and Maclean’s and Summerfield et al, child support reforms shift the burden of support away from the state and the nonresident parent to the resident parent, (in the case of this paper it is the sole parents and especially women) (Fehlberg & Maclean, 2007. pg 4-6 ; Summerfield et al, 2010. pg 1-11). Key Issues This part of the paper will look at the key issues that this paper has raise and give recommendations on the changes that need to be made concerning these issues. As we have seen above, the reforms shifted the burden of care to the resident parent, in our case here the female Asian and Chinese lone parent head of the family. In addition to this, this parent is also the one who bears the consequences of loss of earnings. Considering that the earnings of mothers who have children are less by 28% than those of mothers with no children, there is unfavorable financial connotation on these parents (Chapman et al, 1999. pg 11-13). While the recent reforms may have achieved their intended purpose of introducing employment incentives and shifting the child support burden from the state to the parent, they have significantly undermined the other stated primary objective of reducing the poverty of children in single parent families (Finn & Gloster, 2010. 71- 74). The reforms have done this by overlooking the effect that the child support reforms would have on WTW. The reforms basically lack a balance in the circumstances of Asian and Chinese lone parents due to the loss of earning capacity caused by barriers to work for these parents. Creating the Incentives to work The combined results of the reforms have become disincentives to work for Asian and Chinese lone parents because of the increased Effective Marginal Tax Rates (EMTRs). In addition to this, the range of incomes at which these reforms operate to increase the EMTRs cover the estimated levels of income that these parents could achieve if made to undertake 15 hour working weeks under WTW. The reforms therefore economically penalize the same groups of single parents who the WTW reforms were intended at assisting into the workforce. In the words of Summerfield et al, “While the employment participation requirements of NSA may provide the necessary stick, the carrot of improved financial circumstances has been remove” (Summerfield et al, 2010. pg 1-11). The reforms therefore reflect a penalizing approach to the wellbeing of conditions and even a withdrawal from the Governments previously stated apprehension on the levels of poverty levels of children and single parent families. The question that begs is whether the reforms are a platform for migrant sole parents and specifically those of Asian and Chinese to participate in employment which would improve their situation if they were in reasonably well paid jobs. Population trends among these groups and especially women’s education and workforce are not the only determinant factors in the participation of these women to take part in workforce. According to Flatau and Dockery, PPS recipients are more likely to get jobs while on income support than other recipients of income support (Flatau & Dockery, 2001. pg 1-2). The Australian Bureau of Statistics data of 2007 shows that there have been major increases in enrolments into education and participation in the workforce for female lone parents but these are mainly part time employments and not full time (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007. pg 1-12). From the factors that this paper discusses above, it is evident that barriers such as family and social infrastructure also affect female sole parent’s participation in the labor market because of lack of child care and co-parent support and this has often transformed into economic disadvantage due to child care costs and a lack of power in the employment market place, a limit in the number of hours that these parents can work and restrictions in their capacity to pursue better education and career development. However, family friendly environments for these parents are not widespread in Australia and in most countries as well and especially in the unskilled labor markets (Hall, 2003. pg. 1-4). Recommended reforms -There is a need for further policy reforms which will enhance the working conditions for sole parents and especially sole mothers who are highly disadvantaged by the fact that they cannot work full time and at the same time take care of their children. Effectively increasing their wages in order to enable them acquire much needed child care and be able to work full time and earn enough money to support their families would be highly welcome (Summerfield et al, 2010. 1-11). -There is a need for family friendly policies that are more likely to get mothers into better jobs which will attract good remuneration (Hall, 2003. pg 1-4). The policies need to enhance incentives for parents who are divorced or separated to be able to share the responsibilities of child care equally even for parents who are not separated in order to ensure a balance in parenting and create time for disadvantaged sole parents who are mainly females. -There is also a need for inclusion of Asian and Chinese migrant sole parents in policy since there is very little on their inclusion in Australian policies and this has further excluded them leaving them without much but to wallow in poverty and especially sole female parents. -The solution to minimizing welfare dependency for single mothers who are the majority heads of sole families is to create infrastructure in order to support mothers in the workforce and increase the participation of fathers in the care of their children both for separated parents and parents who are together. -As for single parent who have no partners with whom child care responsibilities can be shared, there is a need for the government to incorporate policies through which they can enroll them in informal institutions in order for them to gain skills that c an assist them in landing better paying permanent which will enable them to take care of their children and work full time and also get of income support. List of References Aronowitz, m. (1984). The Social and Emotional Adjustment of Immigrant Children: A Review of the Literature. International Migration Review, vol. 18, no. 2, , 200-257. Australian Bureau of statistics CATALOGUE NO. 4102.0. (2007). Australian Social Trends 2007: One-parent Families. Canberra: ABS. pg. 1-11 Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2007). Australian Social Trends 2007. Canberra: ABS. pg. 1-11 Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2012). 2006 Census Data by Topic. Retrieved June 11, 2012, from Australian Bureau of statistics: http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/ABSNavigation/prenav/LocationSearch?locationLastSearchTerm=&locationSearchTerm=St.+George+NSW&searchButton=Search&collection=Census&period=2006&areacode=&geography=&method=Place+of+Usual+Residence&productlabel=Ancestry+%28 Australian Government. (2005). Budget measures 2006-07 budget paper No. 2. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. pg. 30-35 Blaxland, M. (2005). Welfare to work activity agreements, or how to reduce mothers’ autonomy by requiring they do what they are already doing. Social Policy Research Center. pg. 1-11 Cass, B. (1988). The Feminisation of poverty. In B. e. Caine, Crossing Boundaries (pp. 1-6). Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Chapman, B., Dunlop, Y., & Gray, M. e. (1999). The foregone earnings from child rearing revised(Discussion paper No. 4). pg.11-13 Canberra: Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University. Cox, E., & Priest, T. (2008). welfare to work: At what Cost toParenting. pg 43-51 . Read More