States, Markets, Communities: Remapping the Boundaries, Proceedings of the National Social Policy Conference, Sydney, 16-18 July 1997, Volume 1

Abstract

Belinda Probert in her Keynote Address looks at changes in employment as they affect women and impinge upon households differentially according to class and socio-economic status. John Myles, in his Plenary Address, places the welfare state in the context of the market, an ageing population and other post-industrial changes, contrasting their effects with the resiliency of the forces which shaped welfare states. Although his paper focuses primarily on development and debates in North America and Europe, there are obvious lessons and implications for social policy in Australia. The themes in these two papers are taken up in the contributed papers, some of which have applied them to specific population groups: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the unemployed, the homeless, the poor, the young and the old. All of these have in some way been affected by the 'remapping of boundaries'.