Religion and Life Satisfaction Down Under

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. We investigated the association between religious involvement and life satisfaction using panel data from the 2004, 2007, and 2010 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Our study provides strong evidence of an association between attendance at religious services and life satisfaction in the Australian social context. While social resources mediate this association, there appears to be a remaining direct influence of attendance at religious services on life satisfaction. To unravel this association, there is a need to disentangle and separately assess the influence that ‘religious social resources’ and ‘secular social resources’ may have on life satisfaction

Peas in a Pod: Are Efficient Municipalities also Financially Sustainable?

© 2016 CPA Australia Are efficient councils financially sustainable? We argue that an efficient council may not necessarily be financially sustainable. Our subsequent empirical analysis finds limited evidence in favour of an ‘efficiency–sustainability’ nexus. Thus, policies aimed at improving a council's efficiency may not automatically enhance their financial sustainability. Public policy makers have principally focused on improving the operational efficiency of local government on the presumption that this will result in a more financially sustainable sector. We argue that it is erroneous to assume that an efficient local government entity will necessarily be more fiscally sustainable. To test this argument, we apply an innovative method for empirically testing the association between financial sustainability and operational efficiency to the New South Wales local government system. Our results suggest limited positive associations between financial sustainability measures and municipal efficiency

Is There a Case for Mandating Directly Elected Mayors in Australian Local Government? Lessons from the 2012 Queensland Local Government Elections

© 2015 Institute of Public Administration Australia. A 'semi-executive' model for Australian mayors, inclusive of direct election, is presently being explored in the Australian local sector (see, in particular, Sansom, 2012). This paper takes advantage of the differences across Australia's federation to examine the recent experience of directly elected mayors in Queensland, especially the results of local government elections held in 2012. It is argued that several factors contributed to the high turnover rates of both mayors and councillors, including the 2012 Queensland state election and the 2008 amalgamation process. However, the requirement for directly elected mayors was an important factor contributing to what the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ, 2012, 12) described as a 'significantly high' proportion of 'corporate knowledge' being lost. Moreover, the direct election of mayors, in particular those charged with 'semi-executive' authority, is fraught with problems and thus should not to be implemented in all Australian local government systems

Comparing population health in the United States and Canada

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective of the paper is to compare population health in the United States (US) and Canada. Although the two countries are very similar in many ways, there are potentially important differences in the levels of social and economic inequality and the organization and financing of and access to health care in the two countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data are from the Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health 2002/03. The Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3) was used to measure overall health-related quality of life (HRQL). Mean HUI3 scores were compared, adjusting for major determinants of health, including body mass index, smoking, education, gender, race, and income. In addition, estimates of life expectancy were compared. Finally, mean HUI3 scores by age and gender and Canadian and US life tables were used to estimate health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Life expectancy in Canada is higher than in the US. For those < 40 years, there were no differences in HRQL between the US and Canada. For the 40+ group, HRQL appears to be higher in Canada. The results comparing the white-only population in both countries were very similar. For a 19-year-old, HALE was 52.0 years in Canada and 49.3 in the US.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The population of Canada appears to be substantially healthier than the US population with respect to life expectancy, HRQL, and HALE. Factors that account for the difference may include access to health care over the full life span (universal health insurance) and lower levels of social and economic inequality, especially among the elderly.</p

Does religious affiliation influence trust?

© 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to estimate and explore how religious affiliation may influence general and local trust in contemporary society. Design/methodology/approach: This paper employs data from the 2010 and 2014 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The association between religious affiliation and trust was estimated using an ordered logistic regression and conventional ordinary least squares model. Findings: The paper presents evidence of a statistically significant association between religious affiliation and trust that are consistent with theory. Social implications: This finding is important for a heterogeneous population like Australia as it seeks to build social cohesion in the face of threats to internal and external security. Originality/value: The study contributes to the literature by providing – to the best of the authors’ knowledge – the first results on the association between religious affiliation and trust for Australia

Fostering shared services in local government: A common service model

Structural reform of local government through forced municipal mergers has occurred in a number of countries, including Australia, with mixed success. We argue that shared services arrangements by groups of voluntarily participating councils represent a superior means of securing the advantages of scale and scope in local government, without the heavy costs of the blunt instrument of compulsory council consolidation. However, in practice, the success of shared services has been inhibited in small regional, rural and remote local authorities by the costs of establishing and running shared service entities, which can swamp any savings from shared services. Taking into account the special characteristics of small non-metropolitan councils, we present a Common Service Model tailored to minimise establishment and transactions costs, maximise flexibility, and generate transparency

Administering faith: Does the religious institution administering a school influence educational achievement?

© The Author(s) 2019. Australia’s education landscape is almost unique among developed nations in having a high proportion of students taught at non-government schools by a diverse range of religious providers, which receive relatively high levels of government funding. It therefore offers the ideal setting for a study on the outcomes achieved by students at schools administered by the major faith providers relative to their peers in government institutions. We take advantage of a six-year panel of nationwide academic test data, along with a comprehensive suite of control variables, to test whether there are differences in average school performance. We find strong evidence to suggest that significant differences in achievement exist between various faith-based providers that cannot be explained solely with reference to educational advantage and prior performance

Municipal Mergers in New Zealand: An Empirical Analysis of the Proposed Amalgamation of Hawke’s Bay Councils

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. Abstract: Local government policymakers across the developed world have frequently employed municipal amalgamation to improve the operation of local councils, and New Zealand is no exception. This paper empirically examines claims made in Potential Costs and Savings of Local Government Reform in Hawke’s Bay that the merger of the five local authorities in the Hawke’s Bay Region of New Zealand would generate significant cost-savings. We empirically test for the existence of scale economies in a single merged Hawke’s Bay council and find that no cost-savings can be expected. This removes a key argument for a forced Hawke’s Bay amalgamation