Welfare state retrenchment in New Zealand under National rule 1990 - 1996 : a Marxist perspective : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Social Policy at Massey University

Shortly after their election in October 1990, the National Government announced radical changes to the welfare state in New Zealand. The reforms were necessary, National argued, in order to restore growth to the economy. The reforms were designed to impose a residual welfare state, requiring significant retrenchment of the state provision of welfare. Existing accounts of the welfare retrenchment process in New Zealand by National Governments between 1990-1996 fail to adequately take into account two factors. First, the location of this retrenchment process in the economic downturn faced by New Zealand. Second, the role of the state in implementing the retrenchment process. In this thesis I argue that an orthodox Marxist framework enhances existing understandings of the retrenchment process. This framework argues that the state in times of crisis will act in the interests of capital to restore profitability to the economy. The state will adopt particular strategies aimed at reducing state expenditure, of which spending on welfare constitutes a considerable portion, and at tailoring social policy to the needs of the market. The state will also use economic and ideological arguments consistent with New Right thinking to impose its reform agenda. I employ an orthodox Marxist theoretical framework to identify the kinds of strategies a New Right government would use to retrench or roll back state welfare provision. In particular this thesis examines the retrenchment strategies adopted by National Governments between 1990 and 1996 in the social policy areas of income support and state funded pensions. The evidence suggests that an orthodox Marxist framework provides a valuable lens through which to view the welfare retrenchment process in the areas of income support and state funded pensions in New Zealand between 1990 and 1996

Monitoring the Impact of Social Policy, 1980–2001: Social Expenditure Patterns in Aotearoa / New Zealan

The paper examines social spending in New Zealand over the period 1981 - 2001 using OECD social expensditure dat

ISSP2013: National Identity III

<p> The first <a>International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)</a> survey by COMPASS Research Centre at the University of Auckland, with funding support from its Business School. Three years after Professor Philip Gendall retired from contributing to the international programme, COMPASS worked to carry on this fine tradition, branding it locally as the Social Attitudes Survey New Zealand.</p><p>Questions on national consciousness and national identity. Identification with town/city and nation; most important characteristics for national identity; perceived pride in the democracy of the country, the political influence of the country in the world, the economic achievement, the social security system, the scientific achievements, the achievements in sports, the achievements in arts or literature, the armed forces, the history and equal rights of all social groups in society.</p><p>Attitude to the right of international institutions to enforce solutions to be accepted nationally; attitude to enforcing national interests regardless of evoking conflicts with other countries; rejection of acquisition of land by foreigners in the country; preference for national films in national television stations; damage done by large international companies to the local business; attitude to free trade; attitude to follow the decisions of international organisations even if the local government does not agree with them; international organisations take away too much power from the country.</p><p> Availability of worldwide information as a benefit of the internet; importance of sharing national customs and traditions to achieve full nationality; attitude to government support of national minorities to preserve their customs and habits; preference for assimilation of minorities or retention of their identity; hostility to foreigners and prejudices against immigrants (scale); attitude to a reduction of immigration of foreigners; respondent’s citizenship; citizenship of parents at birth of respondent; same rights for citizens and legal immigrants; attitude towards stronger measures regarding illegal immigrants. Attitudes towards ethnic diversity in the workplace.</p><p> Demography: Sex; age; marital status; steady life-partner; years in school, current employment status; current employment status of spouse; hours worked weekly; occupation of respondent and spouse; respondent and spouse working for private, public sector or self-employed; supervisor function; union membership; household size; family income; respondent’s earnings; vote last election; religious denomination; frequency of church attendance; region; town size, rural or urban region; ethnicity. Additionally encoded: mode of data collection.</p

ISSP2015: Work Orientations IV

<p>The second <a href="http://www.issp.org">International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)</a> survey by COMPASS Research Centre at the University of Auckland, with funding support from its Business School, and also the New Zealand European Union Centres Network, via colleagues at UoA and also Victoria University of Wellington.</p><p><br></p><p>The ISSP is a continuing annual programme of cross-national collaboration on surveys covering topics important for social science research. It brings together pre-existing social science projects and coordinates research goals, thereby adding a cross-national, cross-cultural perspective to the individual national studies. ISSP researchers especially concentrate on developing questions that are meaningful and relevant to all countries, and can be expressed in an equivalent manner in all relevant languages.<br></p><p><br></p><p>We were short on resources to run the survey in 2014, so this one included the 2014 ISSP module on Citizenship.</p><p>A verbose rundown on topics covered follows.</p><p><br></p><p>Work Orientations<br>Attitudes towards work; importance of different things in a job; balancing work and family life; discrimination; opinions on trade unions; current employment status. Current financial situation plus changes over time; attitudes towards retirement age. Employed: preference for full- or part-time employment; preference for more work (and money) or for reduction in working hours; opinions about own job plus presence of "heavy" tasks; freedom in work hours; use of past experience; job satisfaction and pride; chances of looking for another job in the next 12 months; multiple jobs.</p><p>Unemployed: ever had a paid job - if so satisfaction in it plus why it ended; desire to have a paid job plus worry about it; willingness to take steps to find a job; advertising oneself; economic support.</p><p><br></p><p>Demography: sex; age; marital-status; education; current employment status; hours worked weekly; occupation; working for private or public sector or self-employed; if self-employed: number of employees; supervisor function; trade union membership; current employment status; earnings; family income; household size; religious denomination; attendance of religious services; size of community; type of community: urban-rural area; ethnicity.</p><p><br></p><p>Sampling: We took a random sample of 2,500 from the New Zealand Electoral Rolls, ensuring first that they all had New Zealand mailing addresses. They were all sent a questionnaire, identified by a barcode, and then three weeks later, those that had not responded were sent a reminder postcard - this was why the questionnaires were identified, so as not to annoy more people than necessary. Finally, after another three weeks, those that still had not responded were sent a second copy of the questionnaire. Ultimately we completed a data set of 901 respondents, a basic response rate of 36%.</p><p><br></p><p>Universe: People on the New Zealand Electoral Rolls, 18 years old or more, and at least a New Zealand Permanent Resident.</p><p><br></p><p>Weighting:A weighting variable is provided, to make the respondent population representative of the original random sample.<br></p

NZES2011: New Zealand Election and Referendum Study

<p>The 2011 New Zealand General Election was held November 26^th. This survey includes module 4 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) programme and also includes questions that will be used to analyse the results of the electoral system referendum concurrent with the election.</p

CSES Module 4 Full Release

The module was administered as a post-election interview. The resulting data are provided along with voting, demographic, district and macro variables in a single dataset. CSES Variable Table The list of variables is being provided on the CSES Website to help in understanding what content is available from CSES, and to compare the content available in each module. Themes: MICRO-LEVEL DATA: Identification and study administration variables: weighting factors; election type; date of election 1st and 2nd round; study timing (post-election study, pre-election and post-election study, between rounds of majoritarian election); mode of interview; gender of interviewer; date questionnaire administered; primary electoral district of respondent; number of days the interview was conducted after the election; language of questionnaire. Demography: year and month of birth; gender; education; marital status; union membership; union membership of others in household; business association membership, farmers´ association membership; professional association membership; current employment status; main occupation; socio economic status; employment type - public or private; industrial sector; current employment status, occupation, socio economic status, employment type - public or private, and industrial sector of spouse; household income; number of persons in household; number of children in household under the age of 18; number of children in household under the age of 6; attendance at religious services; religiosity; religious denomination; language usually spoken at home; region of residence; race; ethnicity; rural or urban residence; primary electoral district; country of birth; year arrived in current country. Survey variables: perception of public expenditure on health, education, unemployment benefits, defense, old-age pensions, business and industry, police and law enforcement, welfare benefits; perception of improving individual standard of living, state of economy, government’s action on income inequality; respondent cast a ballot at the current and the previous election; vote choice (presidential, lower house and upper house elections) at the current and the previous election; respondent cast candidate preference vote at the current and the previous election; difference who is in power and who people vote for; sympathy scale for selected parties and political leaders; assessment of parties on the left-right-scale and/or an alternative scale; self-assessment on a left-right-scale and an optional scale; satisfaction with democracy; party identification; intensity of party identification, institutional and personal contact in the electoral campaigning, in person, by mail, phone, text message, email or social networks, institutional contact by whom; political information questions; expected development of household income in the next twelve month; ownership of residence, business or property or farm or livestock, stocks or bonds, savings; likelihood to find another job within the next twelve month; spouse likelihood to find another job within the next twelve month. DISTRICT-LEVEL DATA: number of seats contested in electoral district; number of candidates; number of party lists; percent vote of different parties; official voter turnout in electoral district. MACRO-LEVEL DATA: election outcomes by parties in current (lower house/upper house) legislative election; percent of seats in lower house received by parties in current lower house/upper house election; percent of seats in upper house received by parties in current lower house/upper house election; percent of votes received by presidential candidate of parties in current elections; electoral turnout; party of the president and the prime minister before and after the election; number of portfolios held by each party in cabinet, prior to and after the most recent election; size of the cabinet after the most recent election; number of parties participating in election; ideological families of parties; left-right position of parties assigned by experts and alternative dimensions; most salient factors in the election; fairness of the election; formal complaints against national level results; election irregularities reported; scheduled and held date of election; irregularities of election date; extent of election violence and post-election violence; geographic concentration of violence; post-election protest; electoral alliances permitted during the election campaign; existing electoral alliances; requirements for joint party lists; possibility of apparentement and types of apparentement agreements; multi-party endorsements on ballot; votes cast; voting procedure; voting rounds; party lists close, open, or flexible; transferable votes; cumulated votes if more than one can be cast; compulsory voting; party threshold; unit for the threshold; freedom house rating; democracy-autocracy polity IV rating; age of the current regime; regime: type of executive; number of months since last lower house and last presidential election; electoral formula for presidential elections; electoral formula in all electoral tiers (majoritarian, proportional or mixed); for lower and upper houses was coded: number of electoral segments; linked electoral segments; dependent formulae in mixed systems; subtypes of mixed electoral systems; district magnitude (number of members elected from each district); number of secondary and tertiary electoral districts; fused vote; size of the lower house; GDP growth (annual percent); GDP per capita; inflation, GDP Deflator (annual percent); Human development index; total population; total unemployment; TI corruption perception index; international migrant stock and net migration rate; general government final consumption expenditure; public spending on education; health expenditure; military expenditure; central government debt; Gini index; internet users per 100 inhabitants; mobile phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants; fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants; daily newspapers; constitutional federal structure; number of legislative chambers; electoral results data available; effective number of electoral and parliamentary parties