Introduction

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12229
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Date: 01 July 2017
• Author: Nicolas Salamanca,Anna Zhu

Policy Forum: Public Investment in Disadvantaged Children

Introduction

Nicolas Salamanca and Anna Zhu*

Children living in poverty have lower devel-

opmental outcomes than their more advantaged

peers. Public investment in children has the

potential to close these gaps and to improve

outcomes for all children. In Australia, public

investment in children and families takes

several forms—from monetary and in-kind

assistance to educational and other services.

While many of these public investments have

been linked to improved child development

and well-being, there remain some key chal-

lenges in how they can best support children

and their families. Moreover, whether policy

investment as currently envisioned is closing

the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged

children remains an open question.

This policy forum discusses three key areas

of public investment in Australian children: (i)

early childhood investment; (ii) education from

the primary to later years; and (iii) Income

Support and Family Payments assistance from

the welfare system. The contributions in the

forum are based on discussions from the

Childhood, Education, and Welfare: Research

& Policy Insights workshop, which was

organised by the Melbourne Institute on 15

February 2017. The workshop brought together

academics, public servants and practitioners to

discuss the challenges associated with address-

ing childhood disadvantage.

1

Guyonne Kalb outlines the main issues with

public investment in early childhood. She begins

by presenting statistics on the inequality of access

and use of formal child care arrangements

between advantaged and disadvantaged families

in Australia. This is followed by a discussion of

the potential benef‌its of early childhood services

and interventions for disadvantaged groups.

Finally, she discusses the issues of accessibility,

affordability and quality of childcare and

preschool services for disadvantaged children

in Australia, and the challenge of integrating

them with welfare and employment programs.

Chris Ryan discusses disadvantage gaps in

education. Chris f‌irst reviews the ways in

which disadvantage could be measured, and

how these measures manifest themselves in the

educational outcomes of children. He then

explains the different frameworks economists

use to understand how these educational

outcome gaps arise, and links it to existing

education policy in Australia.

David Ribar dwells on the area of Income

Support and Family Payments assistance from

the welfaresystem. He discusses the importance

of government resources for childdevelopment

through the lens of a household production

model. The economic model sheds light on the

complexity of the interactions between the

social securitysystem and the within-household

distribution of governmentresource provisions.

David complements such theoretical consider-

ations with an overview of how children’s

developmental needs are considered in welfare

policy decisions and reforms.

* Salamanca and Zhu: Melbourne Institute of Applied

Economic and Social Research, The University of

Melbourne, Victoria 3010 Australia. Corresponding

author: Zhu, email <anna.zhu@unimelb.edu.au>. This

work was supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for

Children and Families over the Life Course (project

number CE140100027). The Centre is administered by the

Institute for Social Science Research at The University of

Queensland, with nodes at The University of Western

Australia, The University of Melbourne and The Univer-

sity of Sydney. This policy forum is a summary of the

proceedings of the 2017 Melbourne Institute Workshop on

Childhood, Education, and Welfare: Research & Policy

Insights.

The Australian Economic Review, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 327–8

°

C2017 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research

Published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd