Publication:
Widowhood and Social Welfare Policy in Australia

dc.contributor.author Rosenman, Linda en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2021-11-25T16:08:23Z
dc.date.available 2021-11-25T16:08:23Z
dc.date.issued 1982 en_US
dc.description.abstract Approximately 9% of the female population of marriageable age and 2% of the corresponding male population is widowed. In total about 750,000 adults plus those who have remarried, experience or have experienced widowhood. That experience is often one of loneliness, emotional distress and financial difficulty. The social security and social service systems cannot replace a partner, but can provide income maintenance and social service support. This study examines needs of widowed persons and identifies gaps in support and provision. Dr. Linda Rosenman, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of St. Louis, spent a period as Visiting Fellow in the Social Welfare Research Centre in 1981. She worked with the team studying the welfare of elderly people, but as this report shows, widowhood is an issue affecting a wider spectrum of the community. She has been involved in large scale studies of widowhood in Australia and the U.S.A. This paper reports only the social welfare policy aspects of widowhood in Australia. Dr. Rosenman examines the survey evidence on financial problems; difficulties with housekeeping; child care and home maintenance; employment; health care; transportation; and loneliness, and concludes with suggestions on ways that our social welfare system might respond to the problems identified more meaningfully and flexibly. The problems are particularly acute for widowed women who are ‘pensioned off’ and, by not being encouraged back into the labour force, are set up for a situation of poverty and dependency. The situation is even more difficult for non-English speaking women, as interviews with 30 Greek widows showed. This paper both provides evidence and makes policy relevant suggestions. en_US
dc.identifier.isbn 858232367 en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/45261
dc.language English
dc.language.iso EN en_US
dc.publisher Social Welfare Research Centre en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries Reports and Proceedings en_US
dc.rights CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 en_US
dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/ en_US
dc.source Legacy MARC en_US
dc.subject.other Australia en_US
dc.subject.other Widows en_US
dc.subject.other Widowers en_US
dc.subject.other Social Welfare en_US
dc.title Widowhood and Social Welfare Policy in Australia en_US
dc.type Working Paper en
dcterms.accessRights open access
dspace.entity.type Publication en_US
unsw.accessRights.uri https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
unsw.identifier.doi https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/947
unsw.publisher.place Sydney en_US
unsw.relation.faculty Arts Design & Architecture
unsw.relation.ispartofworkingpapernumber 16 en_US
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation Rosenman, Linda, Social Policy Research Centre, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW en_US
unsw.relation.school Social Policy Research Centre *
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