Reliance on Income Support in Australia: Prevalence and Persistence

Welfare dependence or reliance is widely regarded to have adverse consequences for both the community and welfare recipients, yet there have been few studies of the extent and nature of welfare reliance. Indeed, the concept of welfare reliance does not seem to be well defined. In the present paper, we clarify the meaning of the concept and derive reliance measures consistent with this concept. These measures are applied to describe the extent and nature of reliance on income support payments in Australia of persons aged 15-64 years, using Australian Bureau of Statistics income survey data and Australian government administrative data for income support payments. Copyright 2003 The Economic Society of Australia.