Continuities in Providing for Old Age: Cross‐national and Cross‐cultural Comparisons
Drawing on a purposive sample of 25 interviews supplemented by secondary source material, this comparative study explores the options available to elderly immigrants in two quite similar countries to achieve social security in their old age. The focus is the culturally determined perspectives and practices of aging Italian-born and Indian-born immigrants in the context of public and private sector social welfare policies and provisions in Australia and Canada. Government transfers, occupational superannuation, tax-deductible personal savings, housing, and formal and informal supports are discussed. What is important to the sense of social security of the older people and how well-off or disadvantaged they seem to be are among the questions raised. The design affords an opportunity to test the complex combination of cross-national and cross-cultural comparison. In the certainty that the income deficiencies of today's elderly immigrants cannot be remedied easily or quickly enough to benefit those affected, intervention strategies can be aimed at expanding ethno-specific community supports and quality residential care; such a direction is supported by assessment of service availability in relation to estimates of aging among particular foreign-born immigrant groups. Suggestions are made for future research at the levels of theory and application. Copyright 1993 by The Policy Studies Organization.
THE PUBLIC VERSUS THE POLICIES: THE ETHICAL BASIS OF AUSTRALIAN RETIREMENT INCOME POLICY
The nature of public feelings about income support for the elderly is examined in survey data and theoretical debates about this are considered. New public opinion poll evidence on compulsory retirement and various aspects of retirement income policy shows strong public support for abolition of means tests and for more public spending on the elderly. The complexity and potential inconsistency of attitudes is examined here in detail for the first time. A “public demand” model of retirement income policy is rejected and the development of policy as a corollary of industrial relations policy is argued. The public opinion opposed to means tests but the electoral support for constrained public expenditure puts party policy makers in a difficult dilemma. Strong positive attitudes to support for the elderly indicate the continuity of the “ethical” core that led to the first establishment of age pinions at the beginning of the century. The situation is, however, fluid as industry superannuation brings more workers into the bounds of the means test and as more wealthier elderly feel the conflict of expenditure constraint applied to themselves. Both sides of the political spectrum experience dilemmas in their policies vis-a-vis public opinion.
Do Australians want the welfare state
Abstract The failures of the Australian welfare state are often implicitly argued to derive in large part from the conservatism of the Australian public. This research uses public opinion poll data from 1940 to 1985 to question some of the claims made about public opinion and Australian welfare. These data indicate that post‐World War Two governments were not the captives of public opposition to expanded welfare provision. The public favoured generous, universal and contributory welfare provision in specific areas where the policies of successive Australian governments favoured selective, illiberal welfare measures funded by taxation. Moreover, public support for government health schemes suggests that welfare programmes generate public support rather than result from it. This evidence suggests that explanations for the conservatism of the Australian welfare state lie elsewhere.