Our projects

Current projects include:

• ‘Inside the black box: Intra-household resource allocations of older couples’

The project, funded by ARC Discovery Grant DP170103297 and administered through Curtin University of Technology will be conducted between 2017 and 2019. Its chief investigators are Professor Siobhan Austen, Dr Astghik Mavisakalyan, A/Prof Helen Hodgson and Professor Ross Taplin from Curtin University of Technology, Adjunct Professor Rhonda Sharp from UniSA, and Emeritus Professor Susan Himmelweit from Open University, UK. Dr Monica Costa is a research associate on the project, and Ms Jaslin Kalsi is a research assistant and PhD scholar.

• Missing workers: Retaining mature age women workers to ensure future labour security

This project provides a detailed understanding of the factors that promote or hinder mature age women’s retention in paid work. Drawing on emerging themes in feminist economics, the project contributes to the development of a new model of employment decision making by mature age women. It has also generated an innovative database that have enabled international comparisons of the factors affecting the retention of mature age women in paid work. Women aged 45+ are a crucial component of Australia’s future labour supply. An understanding of the barriers to their retention in the workforce is necessary for the development of policy to ensure that critical community needs, such as aged care, can be met.