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Research Plan 2006-2008
Families Through Life: Diversity, Change and Context

The Australian Institute of Family Studies seeks to provide timely and reliable information about factors affecting family stability and wellbeing in Australia, to inform policy, practice and the general community. The Institute also provides research capacity to monitor the effectiveness of government programs and is a source of research expertise to the Australian Government, other levels of Government, the private and community sectors and academia.

 

Principles underlying the Institute's research program

The Institute's program of research is based upon three broad principles that underpin the selection of research topics, design and conduct of the research and communication of the results. The principles are: rigour, relevance, and responsiveness. These three principles are closely related to the Institute's values as set out in the Strategic Plan 2006-2008: excellence, collaboration, integrity, leadership, initiative, professionalism, and accountability. The Strategic Plan 2006-2008 is available online.

Some of the Institute's research is Institute-initiated, while other research is commissioned or contracted. Institute-initiated research is generally funded from the annual appropriation from Parliament. The principles apply equally to all Institute research, regardless of the funding sources.

Rigour

The Institute aims to undertake research that is of a high quality, credible and provides a solid evidence base. This requires that the research take account of the latest theoretical developments, and adopts the most appropriate methodologies. The Institute will adopt a range of research methods.

Relevance

The Institute's research program should involve research that is relevant to the development of national policy interests, both currently and on an emerging basis. It should also be relevant to academic researchers, and to the interests and needs of the general community. This includes research that addresses issues affecting families in a wide range of social and economic situations across Australia. It is important that much of the work is at the forefront of science and there is also a role for research that does not inform current policy in an immediate and obvious way, but that is instrumental in setting the future policy agendas. The research should be useful, timely and provide value for money.

Responsiveness

The Institute's research program should be responsive to the policy environment. To achieve these goals, the Institute will be consultative in the development of new research projects; form partnerships and other collaborative relationships; seek external review of new projects and publications; and communicate clearly to the target audience.

Types of research

While some of the research will involve the development of new datasets, other work will be based on further analyses of those that already exist. An important development in family research in Australia has been the establishment of large-scale longitudinal surveys. The Institute is at the forefront of this advance, being responsible for the development and management of Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) and being one of three partners in the consortium conducting the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey.

The Institute is also responsible for the Australian Temperament Project, a longitudinal survey of Victorian children now in its 23rd year. These and other existing datasets, including those developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, represent valuable resources for research on Australian families.

It is important that international research findings and policy solutions are not imported uncritically to Australia. Nevertheless, international developments will continue to be analysed and reviewed in order to identify lessons for Australia. The Institute also helps support research undertaken in other countries, especially in the East Asia region.

The Institute has four clearinghouses that play an important role in identifying, gathering, synthesising and publishing information that is relevant to the development of policy and provide useful information to practitioners. The clearinghouses are the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault, the Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse, the Communities and Families Clearinghouse Australia, and the National Child Protection Clearinghouse.

The Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault aims to improve access to current information on sexual assault in order to assist service providers, policymakers and others working in the field of sexual assault to develop evidence-based strategies to respond to, and ultimately reduce the incidence of, sexual assault.

The Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse seeks to assist in the promotion of family resilience and positive relationships by improving understanding of factors contributing to relationship wellbeing and by informing service provision in the areas of prevention, early intervention and post-separation support.

The Communities and Families Clearinghouse Australia seeks to improve access to current information and other resources to assist those working in the field of early childhood and community development. The primary audience for the Communities and Families Clearinghouse Australia is the projects funded under the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy. The clearinghouse resources also have wider application to communities throughout the country.

The National Child Protection Clearinghouse conducts research, and distributes information and other resources, including specialist advice on the latest developments in child abuse prevention, child protection and associated family violence.

Planned research

The Institute's planned research program, Families Through Life, will focus on the following themes:

• family relationships;
• children, youth and patterns of care;
• families and work; and
• families and community life.

The relevance of the Institute's current research projects to each of these themes is described in Table 1.

All themes relate in some way to the primary functions of families: (a) providing for the health and wellbeing of all family members and (b) raising children to be healthy, well-adjusted and productive members of society.

Research in these areas will take account of the diversity of Australian families, the contexts within which they live and operate, and periods of change or transition for families. The Institute will continue to monitor and analyse broad social, economic, and demographic trends and examine responses at the individual, family and local community levels that feed into these trends.

The projects seek to take account of issues related to diversity, change and context. A brief explanation of the relevance of each of these dimensions to the Institute's work is provided below.

Diversity

Australian families are diverse. Dimensions of diversity include socio-demographic differences (such as ethnicity, age, gender, socio-economic status, family type), and geographic location (for example, major city, regional, rural, remote), as well as differences in the beliefs, attitudes, values, health and subjective wellbeing of family members. Such elements of diversity tend to interact. The research will seek to identify the nature of these interactions.

Indigenous Australians continue to be among the most disadvantaged groups in Australia. The Institute has gradually been increasing the range of research it conducts that focuses on Indigenous Australians, and will further develop its capacity to undertake research on the particular issues Indigenous families face, and the policies that have the best chance of meeting their needs. The Institute is acutely aware of the need to work in partnership with Indigenous Australians and undertake appropriate consultation about research questions and approaches.

Change

Both people and contexts can change. Families are affected by broad patterns of social change. Research into the relationship between social change, values and wellbeing contributes to the efficacy of prevention and early intervention programs and services.

Context

Contexts can change (for example, children can move from a two-parent to sole parent household), and can be diverse in terms of physical environment and geographic location, health, disability or wellbeing of family members, their economic circumstances, the resources available within their communities, and the government policies that have a direct impact upon them.

In relation to the physical environment, issues affecting families in regional, rural and remote Australia will be considered in a number of the Institute's research projects. Some projects will focus on topics of particular importance to families outside of the major cities, such as the impact of changes in population, social networks, labour market opportunities and/or access to services and community infrastructure.

Theme 1. Family relationships

The Institute's research projects that focus on family relationships examine relationship transitions and wellbeing. These transitions may be a function of maturation (for example, leaving home, retirement) as well as changes in relationships themselves (such as couple and family formation, dissolution and re-formation). Projects within this theme will explore:

1. the quality of relationships at different points in time (including intergenerational relationships);
2. factors that help explain diverse relationship pathways (including attitudes and socio-demographic correlates); and
3. the impact of relationship quality and transitions on the wellbeing of family members.

Central to this work is the evaluation of the influence on families of the Family Law Act 1975, particularly in relation to the recent reform of the Act.

The outcomes of this research will represent a valuable resource for the Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse. In turn, information provided by the other three clearinghouses will be clearly relevant to research focusing on family relationships, given the profound impact of child abuse and sexual assault on relationships, and the importance to relationships of high quality services that promote child wellbeing and parenting practices.

Over the next three years, a great deal of attention will be given to: (i) relationship and family formation pathways; (ii) ageing, intergenerational relationships and care; (iii) supporting relationship wellbeing; and (iv) family law.

Relationship and family formation pathways

The Institute has a long-standing interest in monitoring and examining the factors contributing to patterns of leaving home, couple and family formation, family stability, the ending of relationships, and "new beginnings", and the wellbeing of individuals following different pathways. Over the next three years, the Institute intends to build on and extend this body of work by monitoring attitudes, values, and aspirations about the different relationship and family pathways in Australia today.

The monitoring of relationship and family pathways has played an important role in shaping the research agenda. Traditionally, the family formation process began when young adults left home to marry, and concluded when the last child was born. However, family formation processes are now diverse. The Institute will examine in more detail the characteristics and circumstances of some of these diverse pathways, including the level of contact and support that is exchanged between young adults and their parents when they leave the parental home.

With the rise in cohabitation, marriage and divorce statistics have become progressively less useful indicators of partnership formation and dissolution trends. This is particularly the case for partnered individuals under the age of 25 years, most of whom are cohabiting. The Institute's research will examine the meaning of cohabitation for each partner, ways these meanings might change over the course of the cohabiting period, and partnership trajectories.

The decline in the fertility rate represents another area of continuing research for the Institute. In addition to monitoring fertility trends, the Institute recently examined links between age, partnership status, education and employment status on views about having children. Further work in this area will explore the impact of a couple's financial circumstances and each partner's fertility aspirations along with the quality of the relationship in shaping fertility expectations and planning.

Some of the proposed work will capitalise on the increasingly rich Australian longitudinal datasets now available (such as the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia and Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children). Such studies help us to identify the impact of particular factors and policies on families.

Ageing, intergenerational relationships and care

Over the next 30 years Australia's population will age. To date, the main emphasis of policy makers and researchers has been on the economic and health consequences of an ageing society. While the roles of families have been acknowledged in discussions of research and policy priorities (mainly in the context of care provision), less attention has been given to the links between family issues and ageing issues. The roles of older people within families, as well as in the broader society, have also been under-examined.

There are several key topics related to ageing on which the Institute will conduct research over the next three years. These include the contributions of older people to their families and the role of families in supporting older people, the costs and benefits of grandparenting, and the difficulties that grandparents may have in gaining access to their grandchildren.

Supporting relationship wellbeing

In recent years some of the Institute's research has focused on the factors that support the creation and maintenance of strong and healthy couple relationships. It has also become more directly involved with the field of marriage and relationship education and is currently exploring opportunities for collaborating with practitioners on Institute projects, and for assisting service providers to conduct research and evaluation activities within their agencies.

Much of the existing policy related to ageing assumes that older families function reasonably well. However there is little evidence to support this assumption. We need to know more about marital quality in later life and to identify ways in which such marriages can be strengthened and supported - issues that will be addressed by the Institute in 2006-2008.

Through the Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse there will also be an emphasis on collating and translating research outcomes into material that is accessible to practitioners in the field of marriage and relationship education as well as in other related areas of couple- and family-focused service delivery.

Family law system

This is an area in which the Institute intends to increase its research capacity. High priority areas for new research include the perceived fairness of any child support policy reform; a process evaluation of separating parents' choices and experiences of different family law pathways in the new family law system; an evaluation of aspects of Family Relationships Centres; the development of resources and tools to support separating parents and their children; and property division and post-separation economics.

There are three major ongoing projects that will be completed during the period 2006-2008, two of which involve collaborations with other universities (see Table 1). The Caring for Children after Parental Separation Project, which maps diverse patterns of parent child contact and financial support after separation; the Understanding Contact Disputes Project, which investigates parenting disputes about parent-child contact and the context in which they occur; and the Experiences of Parents and Children after Family Court Decisions about Relocation, which examines the experiences of parents and children after judicially-determined relocation decisions.

The Institute is also undertaking a scoping project to explore the value of, and potential interest in, compiling a database on the types of family law data (that is metadata) held by key agencies in Australia. In addition, the Institute is undertaking a study into allegations of violence in the context of family law proceedings.

In sum, family law research by the Institute over the next three years will target four main areas: (i) post-separation parenting; (ii) improved understanding of the psycho-social dynamics of parental conflict after separation, and ideas for ways in which this conflict can be reduced; (iii) improved understanding of key aspects of the "new family law system" as it begins to unfold, and (iv) the development of conceptual tools that can help monitor the impact of any policy change on the wellbeing of families who are in contact with the family law system.

Theme 2. Children, youth and patterns of care

Over the next three years, research will be conducted into:

1. family influences on children's development;
2. non-parental care for children; and
3. family influences on the extent to which children and young people engage with society.

These three areas all stem from the recognition that children's development is influenced by the family environment. The family influences how children develop. Children's lives, however, are not limited to family. They spend time in places where others are responsible for their care and influence their lives: child care centres for example, and schools. Children are influenced also by the areas and the communities in which they live. If all goes well, they also become active, involved and productive members of the society in which they live.

Understanding the influences of child and family characteristics, parenting practices, family structures and factors in the broader community and social environment on children's development is crucial information for the development of policy and the provision of services to families.

Children's views are increasingly recognised as important, yet their voices are seldom heard. The Institute has previously gathered the views of children and adolescents on a range of issues. The Institute will continue to seek the views and perspectives of children and young people on such issues, as well as other potential topics such as what is important for their wellbeing, what they value in family life, their family and care arrangements, and their attitudes towards relationships and family formation.

Family influences on children's development

Research into family influences on children's development will form part of the Institute's research agenda. Important questions include (i) how parenting skills or difficulties are transferred from one generation to the next; (ii) the extent to which parenting skills can be improved; (iii) the impact that increasing rates of employment of mothers, particularly those with young children, has on the role of fathers in raising children; and (iv) the impact of changes in fathers' roles on the long-term wellbeing of children and parents.

The Institute is also keen to examine outcomes of children growing up in disadvantaged or adverse circumstances, together with the factors that promote resilience and allow some children to overcome disadvantage. In relation to these matters, factors that contribute to some children's experience of child abuse or neglect will continue to be a focus for the Institute. Another area of interest covers the challenges and requirements of families in which a family member has particular needs, and the experiences and difficulties of families raising children and young people in rural and remote communities.

Continuing Institute projects in this area are the Children and Family Life study, the Australian Temperament Project and Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

Non-parental care for children

This theme focuses on the effects of non-parental care on children's development and wellbeing.

Child care arrangements and children's experiences continue to be issues of high priority for the Institute. The core issues here are, first, the importance of quality, affordability and access; and second, the influence of child care and its differing types on children's wellbeing and development. There is also growing interest in the child care activities of grandparents, the role grandparents play in children's lives, the impact of child care duties on grandparents, and how these duties may be balanced with the increasing imperative for older people to remain in the workforce. Other types of care arrangements such as foster and other forms of out-of-home care, and their impact on children and young people, remain issues of significant policy interest and represent key opportunities for future Institute research. The Institute plans to examine each of these issues during 2006-2008.

Family influences on children and young people engaging with society

Families can have a profound influence on the progress and adaptation of children as they move into other social environments such as child care and school. Findings from the Australian Temperament Project have highlighted the consequences of children's transition experiences for their later adjustment and wellbeing - and thus the importance of a smooth transition. However, the family and community environments that promote successful transitions remain poorly understood, and there is growing interest in this emerging issue. Family influences on young people's decisions about life pathways, including their educational and employment choices, are also not well understood and present an opportunity for future research.

Another emerging issue is the role that families play in the development of young people as active, involved and productive members of society. Understanding how patterns of social and civic participation among young Australians differ according to personal, family and other circumstances and ways in which these factors may influence engagement in such activities remains sketchy, and will continue as an ongoing topic of research.

Theme 3: Families and work

There have been substantial changes in the patterns of labour supply for men and women over the last three decades that have affected family life; including how children are cared for and the time family members spend together. Of particular significance is the substantial increase in the rate of labour force participation of mothers. This has led to a large increase in the proportion of families in which both parents are working, although often one parent (usually the mother) works part-time. At the same time there has also been an increase in the proportion of children who live in households in which no adult is in paid employment.

Research in this theme will focus on two broad areas:

1. how families combine caring responsibilities and paid employment and what assists families in successfully combining both sets of responsibilities; and
2. the relationship between labour market transitions and family factors.

Combining family life and paid employment

Research in this area will have a focus on the ways in which family members combine their family responsibilities and paid employment and the impacts of these arrangements on family relationships and the wellbeing of family members. Particular attention will be given to child care arrangements, elder care responsibilities, and the take-up of parental leave conditions.

Our understanding of the effects of availability, quality and costs of child care on labour supply decisions is incomplete and so research will be conducted into the effects of these factors on family labour supply decisions. An important aspect of this research will be on documenting in detail the varied ways in which parents use child care and arrange their working hours to allow paid employment.

Families are by far the most significant sources of care for the elderly, with women providing greater levels of care than men. Increased employment rates of women have resulted in a growth in the proportion of workers with adult care responsibilities. Relatively little is known about the types of work arrangements that best allow paid employment and adult care to be combined and about the effects of adult care responsibilities on labour supply decisions. Projected labour force shortages as the population ages in coming decades will mean that allowing participation in paid employment for those with caring responsibilities is likely to be of high policy relevance.

The Institute will continue to focus on working parents' access to, and take-up of, parental leave conditions. Part of this work will be based on data from Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children that provides unique data on the pre- and post-birth employment arrangements of Australian parents with young children.

Families and work transitions

Work in this area will focus on the relationship between family change and labour force status. Research will focus on:

1. the return to work decisions of mothers following child bearing and the ways in which families manage this transition;
2. the effects of differences in access to paid parental leave and a range of family-friendly employment arrangements on labour supply decisions;
3. the implications of labour supply decisions on children, parental and family wellbeing.

An important transition is from reliance on government income support payments (such as Parenting Payment, unemployment related benefits and the Disability Support Pension) to paid employment. The family factors affecting this will be researched. It is important to also consider and understand the dynamics of the transitions from paid employment to receipt of income support payment. Ongoing research using data from the Institute's Family and Work Decisions study has highlighted the varying decisions that partnered and single mothers make with respect to employment and the ways in which these decisions are influenced by financial incentives generated by interactions between the income support and taxation systems (Effective Marginal Tax Rates). This information is directly relevant to the current welfare reform policies aimed at increasing workforce participation. Research in this area will continue.

Another area of research will be on the interaction between child support obligations and contact arrangements on workforce participation of resident and non-resident parents.

Theme 4. Families and community life

The fourth research theme, Families and Community Life, focuses specifically on the connections between the health and wellbeing of families and their residential communities. This link is fundamental, for families are the building blocks of communities and rely on community resources for meeting the family's needs. As the oft-quoted proverb states: "It takes a village to raise a child".

While this fundamental connection between the health and wellbeing of families and that of their communities is self-evident, there are gaps in our knowledge regarding three closely connected issues: (a) the characteristics of strong and vibrant communities, whatever their type; (b) the ways in which children, adolescents, young adults, parents and elderly people are affected by the communities in which they live; and (c) the attitudes, values, beliefs and needs of Australian families in different contexts, and the most effective means by which these can be met. These issues are important for the development of policy at all levels of government. Work in this theme will be supported by the Communities and Families Clearinghouse Australia.

Strong and vibrant communities

The Institute, along with the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, is undertaking the national evaluation of the Australian Government's Stronger Families and Communities Strategy (SFCS). This evaluation will provide quantitative evidence on the extent to which the SFCS programs result in stronger communities with better outcomes for children and their families. Identification of strong and vibrant communities will form a key part of this evaluation. Particular attention will be given to inclusiveness, for this characteristic appears to be a key defining feature of strong and vibrant communities.

As part of the SFCS national evaluation the Institute is managing the design and collection of the longitudinal study Stronger Families in Australia. This study will provide evidence of the impact of the Communities for Children initiative on outcomes for young children and their families.

Neighbourhood and residential mobility effects

Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, is specifically designed to enable investigation of neighbourhood effects on children's development and family life. In addition to identifying these effects, the Institute will examine the impact of residential mobility on children and their families.

Community attitudes, values and beliefs

An appreciation of the attitudes, values and beliefs in communities, including those that relate to use of prevention and early intervention programs, is essential for a proper understanding of the relationships between the health and wellbeing of families and their communities. As noted above, the Institute will be undertaking a national study of these phenomena - a study that will provide information of relevance to each of the research themes. In addition, as part of the SFCS, the Institute will examine the views of parents with young children about the quality of their neighbourhood, including its inclusiveness and child-friendliness.

Families and community services

There are many services that exist to address the needs of families. The Institute plays a role in mapping and evaluating services and in promoting service systems that are based on sound research. As part of the evaluation of the SFCS, the Institute will examine promising practices regarding service provision for families with young children and young families' access to, and use of, various types of services.

In addition, the Institute will continue to support service provision for families and children through its clearinghouses that not only communicate research findings regarding the effectiveness of service provision to practitioners, but also feed into this process by engaging in practice-based research in collaboration with service providers.

Concluding comment

While this research plan is ambitious, it contains an element of flexibility, for it is essential that the Institute is responsive to emerging issues relevant to the wellbeing and stability of Australian families. The Institute therefore welcomes feedback on the above planned areas of research and suggestions for further areas of research on emerging issues of concern to Australian families.

Table 1. Projects continuing from the Research Plan 2002-2005

			Research themes
PROJECT	Institute-initiated or commissioned	Collaborators	Family relationships	Children, youth & patterns of care	Families & work	Families & community life
Building Healthy Couple Relationships	Institute-initiated		••	•	•	•
Caring for Children after Parental Separation	Institute-initiated		••	••	•
Children and Family Life	Institute-initiated		•	••	•
Decisions on Having Children	Institute-initiated		••	••	••
Family and Work Decisions Project	Institute-initiated		•	••	••
Family Law Monitoring and Evaluation	Institute-initiated		••	••
Family Trends and Transitions	Institute-initiated		••	••	••	•
Parents on Low Income	Institute-initiated		•	•	••
The Case for Marriage in Australia	Institute-initiated		••
Work and Family Interactions	Institute-initiated		•	•	••
Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse	Commissioned - Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA)		••	•	•	•
Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC)	Commissioned - FaCSIA	The advisory group members: Australian Council for Educational Research; Telethon Institute for Child Health Research; Queensland University of Technology; Macquarie University; Charles Sturt University; Murdoch Childrens Research Institute; Australian National University's National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, and Centre for Mental Health Research; Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales.	•	••	•	•
Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault	Commissioned - FaCSIA		•			••
Communities and Families Clearinghouse Australia	Commissioned - FaCSIA		•	•		••
National Child Protection Clearinghouse	Commissioned - FaCSIA		•	••		•
National Evaluation of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy	Commissioned - FaCSIA	Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales	•	•		••
Indigenous Out-of-Home Care	Commissioned - Australian Council for Children and Parenting, via FaCSIA	Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care		••		•
Allegations of Violence	Commissioned - Attorney-General's Department		••	••
Family Law Data Mapping Project	Commissioned - Attorney-General's Department	Australian Social Science Data Archives, Australian National University	•
Understanding Contact Disputes	Commissioned - Attorney-General's Department	Sydney Law School, University of Sydney	••	••	•
Research Utilisation by Child Protection Practitioners	Commissioned - Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of South Australia			••
Families in the East Asian Region	Jointly with FaCSIA		••	••	••	•
Australian Temperament Project	Joint funding Australian Research Council (ARC)	Prof Prior, Prof Oberklaid, Associate Prof Sanson and Associate Prof Toumbourou	••	••	•	•
The Experiences of Parents and Children after Family Court Decisions about Relocation	ARC	College of Law, Australian National University	••	••
•• Indicates theme or themes to which the project is most relevant • Indicates theme or themes to which the project has some relevance

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Last modified August 2006