2. Self reliance and interdependence among Colonial Families

A typical pattern of such joint family enterprise was the family household economy which sustained the work on the land in early farming and selections from the 1870s. The family economy of some country town and city dwellers also underlay the livelihood of many a small family-based industry or business: shops and laundries, hotels and eating-houses, boot-makers and tailors. (Bottomley, 1983, pp33-34)

A second pattern of family economic organisation existed among the working class in country towns and cities throughout the colonial period. Here families similarly relied on the shared work of members, but these contributed wages, not labour, in a shared-wage economy enabling the group as a whole to purchase shelter, food and clothing - the basic necessities for survival. Wives in such families contributed in many ways, notably through such informal employment as taking in boarders, cleaning, laundry, performing piecework for factories. Older boys and girls entered into paid employment and, even if they resided away from home, were often expected to make a financial contribution to help their parents bring up their brothers and sisters.

Among wealthy landowners and the urban middle class, however, a very different family structure existed, based on the fact that the family was moving away from being a unit of production to a unit of consumption. Men were either owners or directors of social means of production in a public sense or were the family's sole breadwinner. Children were isolated from engagement in production and were subjected to a prolonged educational experience which would enable boys to seek professional or business employment in maturity and the girls to marry within their class. Women's productive roles were also fast diminishing. (Grimshaw, 1983: 33-35)

Debate about the availability of kin to assist

There are diverse opinions about the importance of extended family members in assisting in the settlement and economic survival of families in colonial Australia. Aspin maintains that the traditional extended family was not really a common feature in rural Australia as so few families migrated to Australia in the early years there was not sufficient time to develop large family networks. Moroever, very few families had the economic resources to support large families on large properties. Rural families were very isolated during the nineteenth century, as tpt systems - including roads and railways - were poorly developed. Extended family systems may have existed in the sense of strong emotional ties, but it is unlikely that there were many families with three generations living under the one roof. It is more likely that two generations may have lived on the same property, sharing the work and profits but living in separate houses. (Aspin, 1987, 33)

Even (the very numerous) Irish immigrants, McConville says, were seldom part of lengthy chains of emigration. 'the Irish found few encircling Celtic worlds once in the colony' and tended to live in scattered clusters. (McConville 1985, p3-7)

Gilding and O'Farrel, in contrast, point to diversity of kinship patterns among different ethnic groups, but suggests that the Irish were one group for whom extended kin were very important.
'A superficial glance at the fact that 85 per cent of the Irish who came to Victoria in the 50s and 60s were single might suggest lonely exiles, but very many of these were brothers and sisters, cousins, relations, friends - and usually also met by such on arrival. They then tended to settle close to such Irish as they knew, were often employed by them, and frequently married within the group' (Gilding, 1997, p64).
In contrast, Scottish Highlanders migrated in large kinship groups, reflecting the traditional importance of the clan and stem family.

Outside assistance - government's and charities

Families in colonial Australia had few government-provided services to turn to for assistance either in times of need or even for basic services such as education and health. Nonetheless, as compared with early British settlement in America, the Governor and his administration played a central role in many aspects of development of the Australian colonies - deciding upon allocations of land, convict labour and the construction of most of the roads and major buildings. As discussed in section 3, the growth in urban settlement was accompanied by growth in services provided by voluntary organisations and charities who provided help for their members or 'the deserving poor'.

Generally, 'It was expected that such crises as unemployment, death of a breadwinner and care of the chronically sick, would be faced by the family, so that small family units were thrown heavily on their own resources. The situation stopped short of being disastrous only because the colonies enjoyed a slightly improved standard of living from the British and Irish conditions. (Grimshaw, 1983: 35)

There has existed in Australia a tradition of the family assuming respy for its own welfare, in the belief that government support would undermine the family's self-reliance and initiative. (Aspin 47)

'The stance of government for the greater part of the nineteenth century could be summed up under the slogan of laissez-faire. Policy was characterized by a concern to facilitate the operation of competitive markets whenever possible; ...to pursue a minimalist provision of public goods ... when political pressures made this necessary; and to attempt to support and co-ordinate the private provision of welfare services.' (In UK, the volume of welfare relief channelled through private and charitable agencies was far greater than that directly provided by government.) In addition, informal and neighbourly help outside the structure of charitable agencies was the first resort for most of the poor.' (Papadakis and Taylor Gooby, 1987 p3-4)

Demography

With shortages of labour and children important around the farm or extra earners, large families were common. High fertility in 1850's and 60s average 7 or 8 children.
'A remarkable feature of these colonial families which was common to other pioneering societies is that they undertook the task of establishing an economic foothold and of rearing their children cut off from the assistance of an extended family network...
A Second unusual feature of the colonial family was that a large no of males were unable to marry because of the imbalance of the sexes in the colonial population.
One might say, then, that families in the Australian colonies were subjected to conflicting pressures. A truncated kinship structure and the presence of a substantial minority of men outside of family structures which rendered family lfe more vulnerable were counterposed to an economic orgn which drew many families strongly together through instrumental ties.' (Grimshaw 1983, pp 36-7)

Women

There has been a lively debate among historians concerning how Australia conditions affected gender relations among the new settlers. Some (Russel Ward) emphasisised strong bonds between men, expressed in mateship and the union movement. Feminist historians (Dixson and Allen) reinterpreted this tradition, arguing that Australian conditions were especially unfavourable towards women. Dixson (1976, p65) argues that women in Australia in nineteenth century come pretty close to top rating as the 'Doormats of the Western World'
Patricia Grimshaw, in contrast, argues that frontier conditions generated more egalitarian gender relations. Grimshaw (1979) says that the circumstances of pioneering life, including sex ratios (raising women's value by virtue of being a scarce commodity), accelerated the absorption of ideas about partnership in marriage and women's enhanced status. Women's status in the family explained the progressive adoption of feminist demands in the colonies, notably access to education and the professions, marriage law reform and the suffrage, in advance of Britain. It also explained the commitment to home ownership, the 'family wage', and rapid adoption of birth control. (Gilding 1997 65-6)

Foreshadowing some of the contemporary arguments about sole parent families, wife desertion and female headed families were major concerns in Colonial Australia. One historian (O'Brien,1988, pp89 92) concludes that the absence of a male breadwinner (through death or desertion) was the primary reason for the impoverishment of colonial families. Many commentators in Victoria in the 1850s emphasised the social and domestic costs of the departure of men for the goldfields (Twomey, 1997:22), but male abandonment of women and children had been a matter for comment and concern in official circles since the earliest days of the European occupation of Australia. The earlier colonial state's responsibility for the support of convict mothers and their offspring, and the preference of pastoral employers for 'unencumbered' male labour were often-cited reasons for the extent of family desertion in the Australian colonies (Twomey, 1997:27). In the middle of the C19th, NSW, Vic and SA felt obliged to do something about the many wives and children who were left destitute when their husbands/fathers deserted them to search for land and gold.

The deserted wife was an important part of the rhetoric of the land reform movement which thrived in Victoria during the 1850s and 1860s. Supporters of the movement suggested that if land were available diggers would have taken up agricultural allotments and sent for their wives and families - many of them in poverty in the cities. Twomey says that the land reform movement, which would in fact have provided economic opportunities for men , used wife desertion and the family - ' the symbol of social stability and order' - to argue that small-scale agricultural settlement would be an antidote to the breakdown of family life and overcome the economic and moral vulnerability of women not living in two-parent families. (Twomey, 1997:42)

In summary, high involvement of women and children in rural and urban worklife to help economic fortunes of the family, large families, mixed evidence on importance of extended families, many single men, few services.

3. Urbanisation, industrialisation and voluntary societies

Gilding notes, however, that in late nineteenth century Sydney, there was substantial variation in household structure and activities; partly on account of the range of productive and social activities conducted in the home, and partly because of the impact of unrestrained 'market forces'. The Sydney bourgeoisie ran large households, staffed by domestic labour drawn from working class homes.

For working class households, on the other hand, unemployment and misfortune plunged them into financial crisis. To supplement income-generating activities of wives and children in times of need, households often took in lodgers and extended kin. This was the main reason for the formation of complex households consisting of more than one conjugal couple. (Gilding 1997, pp 18-19).

Charities and Voluntary organisations as service providers

There is some conflict on the roles of governments and private charities in colonial Australia in providing help to families. Brown maintains that
... A central fact of Australian social welfare provision -the responsibility of the states for the direct provision of welfare services - was determined under colonial administration when some features perhaps peculiar to Australia - convict settlement and sparse development over long distances, for example - made for reliance on public administration at colony and later the state levels so that local government and private and voluntary activity were less important.'

'Though there were no Poor Laws as such in colonial Australia, Poor Law thinking often dominated early welfare provisions. ... There is little, for example, to distinguish early charitable endeavour in the Australian states before Federation from what had been done for half a century or more in Britain. (Brown 1989, p51,50)

Beilharz et al, however, suggest that from very early days in each colony there developed a partnership between state and private philanthropy, often involving government's funding private agencies and avoiding direct provision of welfare services. The activities of voluntary, community-based and charitable organisations were sufficiently important to be discussed in terms of them being 'the other state'.

'Discussion of the welfare state ought to include in its scope this vital dimension of what we call the 'other state'.' The other state ... includes an elaborate structure of voluntary, community-based or charitable organisations that have long worked in close funding and administrative proximity to both local and to state government's (or their colonial predecessors), providing a wide range of services to women, children, and the aged. These groups were more than usually vulnerable to the vagaries of a dependent economy, its cycles of boom and bust, and to the labile growth of cities and movements of people.

In each of the colonies, initial enthusiasm by the philantrhopically minded did not convert into enduring self-funding. Indeed, the diversity between colonies in their welfare patterns has largely to do with the extent to which colonial government's either took over the running of programs and institutions from their philanthropic architects or simply moved in to fund the operations of these organisations. '

From its inception government support was forthcoming for the Benevolent Society of NSW (founded in 1818); building provided in 1821, - asylum for the sick, the aged, the vagrant and the poor. salaries for master and matron, by 1862 accepted a grant which provided 60 per cent of outdoor relief activities.

'In the Port Phillip Colony, later Victoria, government early and decisively rejected the principle of a state-managed poor-relief system ... Instead, the colony opted for the rhetoric of voluntary philanthropy oriented to sturdy self-reliance, and for the practice of heavy subsidisation by the colonial government of a constantly expanding charity sector.

As Jaggs (1987 pp18-19) notes: ' Such an arrangement was highly acceptable to government's and charities alike, since it retained the principle that society had a duty to the unfortunate while offering government's the advantages of discretionary decision-making, local responsibility for local problems and cheap administration. The charities on their side received government recognition and a degree of support from the public purse.'
'This partnership between state and private philanthropy seemed to suit the decision makers.' (Beilharz, et al 1992, pp 62-6)

The growth of friendly societies, co-operatives and other self-help organisations can be interpreted in two ways: either as families becoming less self-reliant or as seeking to improve conditions by organising collectively. Such organisations grew rapidly in the nineteenth and early part of the C20th but were reported (NSW Royal Commission into Friendly Societies) to be at times unwilling to set up branches in areas or industries (like coal mining) where high risks made it likely that there would be many expensive claims.

The first friendly society was established in NSW in 1830. Within a few years of settlement each of the colonies had passed Friendly Societies Acts and by the 1860s the societies were a major presence in every Australian town. They were known for their organisation of medical services, for organising the supply of medicines, for their sick pay, and for the help they gave to those who fell on hard times. They also organised social events - feasts, dances, euchre parties, picnics and sports days. In the years before radio and the automobile, membership of a wide range of local organisations - churches, lodges, social and sporting groups - was probably at its peak, being an important means of keeping up with news as well as a social activity.

Devoid of good clinics and hospitals, with few trustworthy chemists and a dearth of doctors, the early colonies were fruitful soil for mutual aid organisations and they grew rapidly. Before the First WW half or more of the popn in Vic, SA and Tas were directly benefiting from friendly society services, as were more than 40 % of NSWmen. And even in the more sparsely populated States of Qld and WA, between a quarter and a third of the population enjoyed friendly society services. (Green and Cromwell, 1984, pxiv.)

In 1896 about 4200 friendly society members in Vic were effectively receiving an age pension - greater than the number of beneficiaries of charitable relief of any kind in the whole of Victoria. In June 1895 there had been 2619 aged inmates of charitable institutions and a further 1100 persons over 60 receiving relief from benevolent societies. (Green and Cromwell, 1984 p64)

The rates of sickness allowance paid by friendly society compared well with government rates of payment. The lowest rate of sick pay in some societies was double that in others.

However, appeals for assistance to voluntary societies and charities could be humiliating and of very uncertain outcome. Women booking in to the Lying-in Hospital (later the Royal Women's), for example, were likely to have to answer questions, from the women of the church who ran it, about the identity of the father. 'As women who wished to uphold publicly the dignity of the marriage state, separate treatment of the respectable poor from those presumed to be unrespectable, perhaps even prostitutes, was mandatory. The stories of the people who came to charities for help were heart rending, mocking the rhetoric of colonial prosperity, pricking the bubble of colonial success. The help that charities finally offered in the face of such needs was short-term, access to it varied geographically, and in a depressed economy the pool of affluent donors, whose contributions sutained charitable activities, tended to decrease in size, shrinking the funds available for distribution.' (Grimshaw et al, 1996, p161)

A number of voluntary associations would make small loans to members, and some later established credit unions. 1947 Australia's first credit union - the Small Loans and Savings Society - established by Manchester Unity in NSW. Mortgages too were on offer from early in the life of societies - who regard themselves as Australia's oldest building societies. By 1923 Manch Unity in NSW was claiming to be the biggest building society in Australia. In later years the society organised its housing loans through separate terminating building societies. (Green and Cromwell, 1984 p70)

Provision of services by governments.

Until the 1870s there was little concern for education past the elementary stages. As Australia tended to follow the reforms introduced in England, it was not until the late nineteenth century that definite steps were taken to make education compulsory for both boys and girls. (34-5 Aspin)

It was not until the beginning of this century that State govts really introduced welfare benefits for the aged, invalid and unemployed. The amount paid was extremely low, and insufficient to provide for basic needs. Prior to WWII, the Commonwealth government played only a small part in the provision of social welfare services (47 Aspin)

Papadakis and Taylor Gooby sum up the period from the 1870s to the early years of the 20C as an interregnum. 'State policy expands in many areas of provision. The most obvious is the development of state-provided elementary education ... first to 'fill the gaps' in provision by charitable, religious bodies, but later to supplant and incorporate much of it. ... Self-help through friendly societies, savings clubs and trade-union insurance ... became a major source of support in sickness, unemployment and old age' (Papadakis and Taylor Gooby p4)

Demography

The depression of the 1890s was very severe in Australia, far more severe than in the US or Britain. (Burns, 1983 pp51-2) Shearers strike also involved economic hardship for families.

A fall in the marriage rate and the fertility rate began well before modern contraception. The birth rate fell by half after 1891 and did not recover until well into the C20th. NSW government appointed Royal Commission into birthrate 'selfishness' and also noted high infant and child mortality - 'The emergent infant-welfare movement publicised the virtues of breastfeeding and undertook the health education of mothers by means of health visitors and special clinics.' Mortality fell from 116 per thousand to 68 between 1904 and 1914. 53

Desertion by husbands seems also to have been common, caused partly by the need to chase work over long distances. The WA census of 1901 found that 28 per cent of married men were living apart from their wives, over and above those who were widowed or divorced. There is no way of knowing how many of these were temporary. (Burns, 1983, 51)

Aboriginal families after Colonisation

As European settlement spread through southern and eastern Australia, traditional communities were destroyed and the remnant populations were gathered on to reserves and missions. Within these confined areas Aboriginal women were able to maintain their position in family and economic affairs. But the role of the Aboriginal male was largely usurped by the European missionary and superintendent. White authorities condemned the Aboriginal religious life and took away the influence and status of the male religious leaders. Western forms of education were introduced and so the role of the Aboriginal male as educator of the young men was made redundant. In these post-traditional communities the status of women increased whilst that of the men declined. Gale, l986, p2

In the 1850s and 1860s it was generally considered that Aborigines were dying out. However, by the 1880s it was apparent that the numbers of Aborigines of mixed descent were increasing and were regarded as a nuisance by non-Aboriginal people. State Protection Boards set about removing children from their parents so they could be resocialised. (Bourke et al, 1995, p59)

In summary, in approximately the second half of C19th, increasing dependence and involvement of men and women in markets; urbanisation and industrialisation: Falling family size, many single men, growth of benevolent funds, lodges, co-operatives, to provide services.

4. Early state socialism or The wage earners paradise

The system of compulsory wage arbitration was a uniquely Australian feature, Castles suggests, arising from the relatively early political gains of the labour movement. It resulted in Australia having relatively high wages and a compressed distribution between high and low income earners.

Under this system, the poor were those outside the labour force, and very large families of wage earners. As Weatherley notes 'If wages were fair and reasonable, it would only be the improvident and those unusually circumstanced who would require help.' (Weatherley 1992, 99). Protection policies were implemented to ensure that sufficient paid employment was available, and age and invalidity pensions were instituted by the Commonwealth government (in 1909) for those outside the safety net of the wages strategy. Frictional unemployment and illness were to be met by families themselves from savings from the living wage.

The Australian state was utilised as a mechansim for securing social policy goals through the control of wage levels and the regulation of trade. Welfare was residual not in the sense that social policy intervention was minimal, but rather because redistributon through transfer payments and social wage benefits was a subsidiary goal of public policy. (Castles 1989, 65-67). 'One of the main achievements of political citizenship in the late C19th was the recognition of the right of collective bargaining in the form of unionism. This meant that social progress was being sought by strengthening civil fights, not by creating social rights. (Beilharz et al 1992, 25.)

There was a redefinition of the family unit by the NSW government in 1927 which legislated that a man and wife without children were to be taken 'as the new domestic unit for which a subordinate authority shall declare a living wage' (Charteris, 1976: 148). This was consolidated by the Commonwealth Arbitration Court's decision of 1931 which stressed industry's ability to pay as the main criterion for wage fixation. While the idea of the domestic unit was preserved it was substantially reduced and the state was to step in to subsidise the care of children. This commenced with the NSW Family Endowment legislation, was extended by the Menzies Liberal government with Child Endowment in the late 1940s, (Game and Pringle, 1983 86-7), and payments for children in low wage families remains a current issue.

The importance of wage arbitration and full employment as a means of enabling families to live without dependence on the state raises major questions about whether self reliance is effectively possible in the 1990s if some individuals and families are unable to obtain employment. Section 7 of the paper returns to the issue of dependence as socially determined and the conditions needed for families to be self reliant.

Female employment and the family wage

The emphasis on the male wage earner as provider, however, biased policies against women; discouraging their participation in paid employment. While the living wage limited inequalities between households, it also institutionalised women's economic dependence upon their husbands. (Gilding 1997, 66)

Although the principle of equal pay for women was operating in some areas as early as 1901, women were limited to certain occupations. At the beginning of the century almost half of the paid female workforce was involved in domestic service. A large proportion of the other 50 per cent were working as dressmakers or in factories, particularly in the textile and clothing industries. Gradually, single females began to be drawn into other forms of paid employment, including teaching, nursing and clerical occupations

World War I had little effect on Australia's industrial expansion, thus Australian women were not needed in the workforce to the same extent as in England. During the depression of the 1930s birth rates fell dramatically. Unemployment relief was introduced by the various State government's prior to the 1930s, although it was insufficient to provide for individual and family needs. During the 1930s all wages were severely affected: women's wages, however, suffered a greater setback and it took many years to recover the earlier gains made. (It was not until 1972 that the Austn Conciliation and Arbn Cmn accepted unconditional equal pay for equal work. ).

Snooks (1994) divides the growth of the market sector after colonisation into four periods. The first, up to the 1860s, is described as a centrally determined imperial core and a precariously growing free enteprise periphery, largely based on the export of wool. While economic development was rapid, there was little scope for female market participation apart from traditional employment (mainly domestic service). The second period, from 1861 to the 1890s, is characterised by boom and bust and a rapid inflow of British capital and labour. Only towards the turn of the century was there expanding scope for female employment in industry, and then mainly in clothing, textiles, and leather working. The period from the 1890s to to the 1930s was one of relative stagnation, with the market economy not growing significantly in real terms.

Private domestic service remained the main source of employment for women until about 1911, when manufacturing surpassed it for the first time. In the depression of the 1930s, many of the wives and daughters of unemployed males sought market jobs in domestic service in middle-class households, but by 1947 manufacturing employed five times as many women as the private domestic service industry.

WWII was really the first time Australian women were given the opportunity to work in occupations that had been tradtionally regarded as male. This situation extended into the postwar era, when there were labour shortages and the economy was prosperous. WWII broke down many employment barriers for women and gave married women with children the incentive to re-enter and remain in the workforce. (Aspin 43- 46)

The technological changes of the post industrial revolution period of the late 1940s to the mid 1970s, brought a rapid increase in the number and range of jobs available for women, particularly in the service sector. In this period the introduction of increased amounts of automated machinery, electronic machinery and computers substituted capital for heavy labour and a range of labour skills - particularly in finance and administration. Snooks (l994: 104-123 ) describes this as the period of 'the feminization' of the market sector - particularly in the expanding services sector. Aspin suggests 'The major change in family life during this century can be summed up in one word: women.' (Aspin p39)

Aboriginal families

The extent to which Aboriginal families were required to be self-reliant and the extent to which Government's intervened to regulate the support provided by religious and welfare agencies has also changed dramatically with time. For most of this century, for example, there have been two welfare systems. Those in the Aboriginal welfare system were generally excluded from the provisions of the mainstream Australian welfare system by their separate legal status.

The Australian social security legislation, since its establishment, contained explicit provision disqualifying Aborigines from eligibility for income support payments. Industrial awards, regulating wages and conditions of employment, also had exclusionary provisions, as did laws relating to the electoral franchise. Even where there was no clear legislative, regulatory or constitutional basis for Aboriginal exclusion, mainstream functional agencies of government generally claimed that responsibility for Aborigines did not lie with them, but with the special purpose Aboriginal welfare authorities. (Altman and Sanders, 1991 p2)

In summary,

5. The Rise of the welfare state and the rights of the individual.

In the broad concensus which emerged after the war, the role of government expanded to include the co ordination and guidance of the economy, the provision of a large no. of welfare services and some measure of redistribution. It became accepted that the state should guarantee an adequate minimum standard of social services, including a minimum income below which no one should fall and access to a range of nominated social services, such as health care and education, in the interests of maintaining civic minima and providing greater equality of opportunity. (Brown p47)

What was new in the post-war period was the kind of theoretical support provided for these policies by Keynesian policies on economic management, the extent to which the expanded role for government became common ground to all the major political parties, the unprecedented scale on which they were pursued and their apparent succes in ensuring uninterrupted economic progress. (Poole, p104 )

Changes in women's role within the family and the labour market

In Australia the period during and after WWII thus saw major changes within families and in their relations with governments and labour markets. The years immediately following the war saw the consolidation of industrial capitalism and the realisation of the suburban dream. With the pent up demand of the war years and much of Europe's productive capacity in ruins, Australian manufacturing industry expanded dramatically and the processes of 'suburbanisation' and 'automobilisation' gathered pace. Between 1949 and 1959 private expenditure on dwellings increased fourfold and that on motor vehicles increased fivefold. (Game and Pringle 1983, p87)

The post-war boom, characterised by stable growth, full employment, relatively high wage levels and rising standards of living, had a profound effect on, not only the structure of the working class, but also its way of life. Aided by the availability of credit and the growth of hire purchase, in a phenomenon named 'the suburban imperative' many working class families acquired a house, a car and a wide range of consumer durables. The home ownership rate increased by 15 per cent between 1947 and 1954 (Game and Pringle, 1983, 87) In the US, it was found that the post-war cohort had acquired within 1 year of marriage as many household durables as their grandparents in 35 years.

In the immediate postwar period woman's role as mother and homemaker became firmly established. Compared with this, even her role as wife became somewhat secondary. At the same time there was pressure on her to be her husband's companion and exciting sexual partner. Hence there was conflict between her different roles in the home. According to the new motherhood ideology, the care of children was not only a duty but a source of fulfillment. This provided fertile ground for Bowlby's ideas: 'Maternal deprivation' was perceived to have such disastrous effects that women were exhorted to attend to their children's needs every minute of the day, to be 'good mothers'. (Game and Pringle. 1983, 90). The family became child centred and the dependence of children was stressed. This was part of a process of families turning in on themselves, paralleling the physical setting of the suburbs and an emphasis on consumption for the home.

During this period new patterns of needs for government, market and community services were also emergeding as increasing opportunities for married women in the labour market resulted in growing numbers of families where both parents had continuing involvement in paid employment. After the war women relinquished the 'men's jobs' in which they had been employed, but many did not just return to domestic labour. Increasing proportions took up 'female jobs' in the paid workforce. The division of labour within the family was the basis of a sexual division outside it. Female labour force participation rates increased gradually during the 1950s but took a dramatic upturn in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1947 less than one fifth of the female labour force was married. By 1971 over half was married (OECD 1971:5) (Game and Pringle, 1983, 91).

One author notes 'something of a paradox' during the period in that households became 'increasingly self-contained but much less self-sufficient'. Households became more self-contained in the sense of purchasing privately-owned equipment such as cars and washing machines, rather than relying upon communal facilities such as public transport and commercial laundries. An eroison of self-sufficiency, on the other hand, was evident in the tendency for fewer household to have their own vegetable patch, backyard chicken coop and fruit trees. Increasing reliance on things manufactured outside the home meant the devaluation of women's productive activities in the home. For example, it became cheaper to buy ready-made clothes rather than to make them (Gilding 1997: 74.)

Many families can thus be described as becoming more dependent on goods and services markets, taking advantage of hire purchase, credit and jobs to finance rising levels of consumption. While increased involvement in the labour market represented increased family dependence, for many mothers there was little risk in this dependence: the issue in the post war period to the mid 1970s was not so much the difficulty of obtaining employment, as of choosing the employment which best fitted in with childcare and transport arrangements.

Changing family size and type

Contrasts are apparent between the 1950s and 1970s: In the post war period until the 1960s there were high marriage rates and a younger age of marriage. Family size was still small. Large scale immigration from Britain and then from northern and later southern Europe added a further dimension to the process of suburbanisation.

The 1970s saw a dramatic shift in population trends, with an increase in separation rates and an increase in the average age at marrriage and first birth. The average number of children per family declined further. No fault divorce was introduced in 1975 in Australia and divorce rates jumped for a few years before apparently returning to a gradually rising trend.

The decline in fertility rates was not due to any change in the numbers of people marrying in Aust, but an increasing tendency to have the first child later in marriage. Thirty years ago, a couple was most likely to have its first child during the first year of marriage: today it is not uncommon to have the first child in the fifth or sixth year of marriage or even later. (Aspin 1987 37)

The proportion of households who are unrelated single people also increased rapidly. Increases in incomes of students (and their parents) during the 1970s enabled more university students to live away from home. Increased pensions enabled more aged single people and sole parent families to retain their own households.

In Australia, Aboriginal families probably live more often in mother-headed households than do non Aboriginal families at the same economic level. Aboriginal households also differ markedly from the nuclear family model. They may be composites with a large number of residents, sometimes including three generations of kin and the children of successive unions of the women of the household. These women are rarely isolated with their children, however, as non-Aboriginal women often are. Aborigines retain a strong sense of obligation to kin and there is a good deal of female solidarity as well as generositiy towards other people's children. As well, Aborigines are much more tolerant of common law unions than their 'white' counterparts, so that single women with children would more readily find a sexual partner who is also prepared to be a surrogate father. Even so, children usually keep in touch with their biological father and his kin. In general, given the mother-centredness of Aboriginal kinship and the prevalence of extended kin ties, the nuclear family ideal is not very useful in helping us to understand Aboriginal families. (Bottomley 1983, 11-12)

Increased Commonwealth government involvement in services and welfare.

Families turned to Labor government's in the 1960s and 1970s, seeking improved quality of life, help from government for tertiary education, health care and accommodation for aged parents. There was emphasis on professional provision and entitlements to income support and services rather than the charity model of private welfare.

'The ALP maintained an ideological commitment to selectivity and means-testing as the best way to assist the poor until the 1970s. Til then the prevailing philosophy was that economic need should be met primarily through employment and wages.
A series of reforms under the Whitlam Labor Government 1972-75 brought a shift to universalism, increased benefit levels and a broadening of eligibility for means-tested programs. A national health scheme was introduced. The Whitlam era reforms were undertaken at the end of a long period of economic expansion in a country that enjoyed a high standard of living. Australia ranked 6th in per capita income in the 1960s. (Weatherley 1992)

Throughout the twentieth century Australian families were characterised by two apparently contradictory features. Family size shrank and households became less complex as the private family home and garden came within reach of more and more families. Yet this apparently enclosed private world was subjected to more state intervention and became heavily influenced by the public policy of successive governments. There was a significant shift in responsibility for vulnerable family members, beginning with infant and childcare measures and extending to the assumption by the state of responsibility for citizens' special needs which had formerly been met in the family. Old age pensions, widows'pensions, child endowment, unemployment benefits, increased provision for the orphaned, sick and mentally ill were legislated for in an initially reluctant and niggardly fashion. Assistance was given: surveillance of family life was the price (Turner 1981; Roe 1976; Lasch 1979)' (Grimshaw, 42)

Fine suggests that the postwar expansion of health and welfare provisions coincided with a belief in Australia, as in many similar countries, that families were no longer capable of caring for the increasing number of disabled and older people in need of care (Townsend 1963; Swain l979). The provision of state finance for nursing homes and other large scale residential institutions was premised, in part at least, on familial and market failure - that is the inadequacy of family support and the inability of the market to provide an equitable and effective solution to the problems (Sax 1984; Saunders and Fine 1992). (Fine 1994 in Inglis and Rogan, 73)

Fine notes, however, that by the 1980s, the philosophy of government welfare service provision had shifted to a reliance on families and non-government organisations. One of the key philosophical principles underpinning the support provided through the HACC program, for example, is that government should work together with families to reinforce and complement them, extending support to a much larger group of people than is possible if resources are concentrated in institutions. Services were provided not to replace informal support, but to strengthen and sustain it. 'In a relatively short period, policy assumptions have therefore swung from a belief in the inevitable breakdown of family based care to a reliance on its continuing viability.' (Fine 1994, 74)

McDonald (1995, p36) writes of the increasing recognition of married women as individuals and extensions to them of social and legal rights. Some of the 'milestones' in the path towards equality for women are:

Income support for families with children was increased during this period and cash payments were provided to the principal carer rather than tax rebates or deductions which conventionally benefit the father. Unemployment benefits for married couples, previously paid to the man, were paid separately to the man and woman. By the end of the 1980s, government payments for families reflected a much greater recognition of the separate rights and needs of women and carers than in earlier years: in the early C20th until 1941, for example, major payments for children went to the breadwinner as a tax deduction.

As discussed further in section 7, these changes, together with increased availability of employment for women, may have reduced the risks for women in marrying and in leaving situations of breakdown of the marital relationship.

Aborigines and welfare services

Even with the policy of assimilation, the pattern of exclusion of Aborigines from the rights and benefits of the Australian welfare state largely remained. They were dependent on the administrations of State government departments, Aboriginal Welfare Boards, and the religious and charitable organisations funded by state governments. In the 1940s, 50's and early 60s Commonwealth child endowment and pension and benefit payments went to Aboriginal welfare authorities who only had to pass on pocket money components to individuals. Direct payment would only be made to individual Aborigines once they had demonstrated their 'ability to handle money wisely' and to manage their own affairs. A referendum in 1967 opened up the possibility of more direct Commonwealth involvement in housing, health, education and jobs for aborigines. The CDEP scheme was initiated in 1977 and expenditure on Aboriginal welfare increased throughout the 1980s in real per capita terms, despite the rapid growth in the numbers self-identifying as aborigines.

Since the 1960s there has been large scale migration of Aboriginal people to the capital cities partly because of a population explosion on the small and confined reserves, missions and settlements. However, the culture and family structure of urban Aborigines are very different from those of the traditional groups with high proportions of female headed aboriginial households and high rates of unemployment and homelessness among men. Healey et al report that a 1980 Adelaide household survey recorded a masculinity ratio of 74.8 for Aborigines compared to 101.4 for the general population and that homeless men form a floating population moving from household to household. There are high rates of dependence on government for income support and services.

'Thus women are the crucial members in urban households as in the rural Aboriginal communities, for similar reasons. Men with low or no job skills, battling racial prejudice, have found permanent employment difficult to obtain. High rates of unemployment hit the Aboriginal community particularly hard. As well as being the family nurturers, women have beconomicme the economic providers with the help of the Commwealth social security and state welfare systems.' (Healy et al, 1985, p323)

Altman (l990) suggests that the economic commonality of contemporary remote Aboriginal communities is also their high level of dependence on the state. There are no data to suggest that the private sector is significant in any remote Aboriginal community, with the possible exception of some communities in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory. (Altman-J, 1990, Australian Aboriginal Studies no.2 1990: 48-52)

In summary,

6. Smaller government and the promotion of self reliance.

Beilharz et al (1992 49 ) point to a change in public discourse in the 1970s. The new argument, they suggest, was an old one: that the welfare state was overloaded, that too many expected too much of it, that Australians treated the state as a public utility that owed them a living, and so on. Under the Fraser Government, the rhetoric of self-reliance replaced that of community or state provision.

Keynesian policies were apparently incapable of coping with a crisis of high inflation and high unemployment. Monetarism provided an economic rationale for cutting down on government expenditure. The post-war years had seen a massive and unprecedented growth in state expenditure and the rising levels of taxation were resented. In a period of slump when it was apparent that such activity was failing to deliver the promised dividend of harmonious economic growth, the financial demands of the state appeared intolerable. (Poole 1983, 107)

This phase has seen measures to halt the increase in government expenditure on welfare and steps to make welfare more efficient, implementing market principles where possible and encouraging self reliance of individuals and families. Since 1975, governments of both political pursuasions have attempted to contain social welfare expenditures. Apart from a peak during the depression of the 1930s, social welfare current expenditures rose slowly between Federation and WWII - from under 2 per cent of gdp in 1900-01 to a little over 5 per cent in 1940-41. With the moves for post war reconstruction they began to rise more rapidly in the 1950s, and by 1969-70 public authority social expenditures were some 40 % of all public expenditures and about 12 % of GDP. By 1975-76, at the end of an expansionary period of Labor government , they had risen to some 50 per cent of public expenditure and to nearly 20 % of GDP (Brown, 1989, p62)

Australia sought to contain social welfare expenditures through more stringent targeting of entitlements, increased scrutiny of applicants, and by requiring more vigorous job search and training activities. The Hawke government set about a major reshaping of the welfare state, marked by increased means testing and selectivity, and an emphasis on a contractual relationship between applicants and the State. 'The changes implemented since Labor assumed office in 1983 represent the most sweeping restructuring of the welfare state in 50 years.' Weatherly, suggests. (1992, p5) They marked a shift from an individualistic, rights-based view of welfare state entitlements to one stressing reciprocal obligations.

The overall thrust of the reforms was in keeping with directions advocated by the OECD. The OECD's approach meant reducing social expenditures and deregulating the labour market to bring down labour costs and increase profits. The OECD also stressed the notion of a 'more active society', a term that meant, depending on one's point of view, reinforcing individual initiative with respect to skills acquisition and job search efforts; or conditioning cash payments on certain behavioural tests as a device for removing claimants from the unemployment rolls. As the OECD noted, to break 'dependency cycles', it was necessary to promote 'a spirit of active job search' (OECD 1990, pp 3,8). The problem of unemployment that had continued to plague many of the OECD countries throughout the 1970s and 80s was due, in this formulation, not to a lack of jobs, but to a lack of effort and preparation on the part of the unemployed. (Weatherley, 1992, p6)

As part of new beliefs about the policies that would benefit their members in terms of jobs and disposable incomes, the ACTU signed a number of Accords with the Labor Party it which it agreed to forgo wage increases and limit industrial disputes in exchange for a promise of increases in the social wage - tax cuts, health and welfare benefits, and lower interest rates. Under these policies, employment did grow strongly for much of the 1980s, but not fast enough to absorb many of the increasing numbers of people, especially women, who entered the labour market.

As part of increased targeting the Labor government increased targeting of benefits, extended waiting periods before benefits commenced, imposed assets tests on benefits and the family allowance supplement and an income test on the family allowance. In addition, some public enterprises were sold and fees were imposed fees for tertiary education.

But perhaps the most far reaching change was the active labour market strategy that underlies the overall approach and was the basis for a revamping of the unemployment benefit. A staff bullein identified Newstart's objectives as helping the unemployed by:
'changing income support from the passive unemployment benefit into allowances which encourage active job search and training; [and] making income support conditional on co-operative self-help on the part of the client. This 'reciprocal obligation' will be set down in a contract.' pp11-12

These changes under Labor marked a shift from a rights-based approach to social security - with assistance considered an entitlement due to citizens in certain circumstances - to a contractual approach, where assistance is conditional on the applicant's meeting various behavioural tests.

Further shifts in the responsibilities of governments and families

According to Papadakis and Taylor Gooby, since the early 1970s, popular and political confidence in state welfare has withered to the extent that they refer to The New Consensus: the Disenchantment of the Intellectuals. The spread of support for privatization and the growth of disquiet with state welfare, they point out, is not confined to one country (Mishra 1984; Eisenstadt and Ahimeir 1985; Seldo 1981; Cameron 1985:9; George and Wilding 1984, p 256; Marshall, Rose, Vogler and Newby 1985: 279; Plant 1985: 3; and so on). (Papadakis and Taylor Gooby 1987, p1). One symptom of the indifferent health of state welfare is the entry onto the political agenda of radical proposals to effect a fundamental shift in the boundary between public and private provision.

The change of government in 1993 brought further questioning of the philosophy of State welfare and a number of proposals to extend the role of families and the market. Brown identifies three broad philosophic trends in welfare: a pragmatic approach, which occupies the middle ground and which probably has been most influential on social welfare provision in Western society; and two polar positions, which he calls welfare collectivism and economic individualism.. (Brown 1989, pp47-8).

Welfare collectivists came to the view that social structural differences were deeply embedded in the economic and social order and that services directed only to the poor would be stigmatising and inefficient. Their initial solution was to press for a considerable expansion of social service provision at a high standard to be available to all, topped up by positiviely discriminating services directed to the most disadvantaged. In the expansionary economic times of the 1950s and 1960s these proposals were modestly influential, and it seemed that there would be a continuing move from selective services, which came into action when the usual institutions of society - the market, neighbourhood networks, the family - broke down, to universal services which took their place as institutions of society in their own right.

Opposition to welfare collectivism from economic individualists revived with the onset of the recession of the late 80s, and the dominance of those advocating small government, deregulation and privatization. In its abstract form, economic individualism sees the costs of public social provision as a burden on productivity from which there are few gains, and many losses. The public provision of social services on a large scale is said to have created economic problems: by overloading the economy through the cost of welfare services; by introducing rigidities into its workings through high taxation, regulatory legislation and the growth of large scale bureacuracies; by undermining individual and corporate initiative; and by the inefficiencies that arise through diverting resources to resolving the problems created by collective action.

In this view, most welfare services are better provided privately so that choice in the market is maximized and market interference minimised. Public provision should be limited to services for the manifestly needy at levels which do not reduce incentives for people to return to the labour market and to seek their own betterment. Reliance on the free market will produce greater economic development, and in turn greater social development, so that much public provision will be rendered unnecessary. Society will not be more egalitarian; inequality may increase, but all will be better off, including the poorest and, perhaps more importantly, there will be more opportunities for betterment. (Brown, 1989, 48-49)

In Australia the Nineties have seen many policy changes consistent with individualist philosophies: policies to introduce market principles through user pays, competitive tendering, contracting out (of prisons, many aspects of health services), sale of public assets, privatisation of services, and the separation of funding from provision of services. Child care has been made more subject to market forces by abolishing subsidy differences between commercial and community providers and paying subsidies directly to the consumers identified as needing them. The extension of parental income testing on payments to young people have aimed to make parents take a larger financial responsibility for young people who are unemployed or studying. In the terms of Ian Winter's paper to this conference, the structure of social exchanges now includes a larger market sector relative to the government and community sectors. The nature of the relationships of families with a number of community services (eg child care) has also changed, with much more emphasis on user pays aspects and less on shared values.

Families and labour markets: Female dependency.

As described earlier, the debate about policies to promote self-reliance includes a wide range of groups, not only economic individualists. For some (see examples from Carlson, IPA, Clark, Gilder l980), the major concern with state provisions is that they cause a breakdown in family relations and responsibilities.

For those who Friedman and Friedman call moral conservatives, 'It is the welfare state, not capitalism, which has led to the decline of voluntary, loving and caring relations between individuals, and their replacement by non-voluntary and impersonal transactions between a welfare bureacuracy and its clients. Further, by providing welfare support for those who leave the family or lead alternative life styles, the state encourages the decline of family relations and responsibilities. ...
much state funded welfare is a poor substitute for personal compassion and caring. For many people, it is the family... which is the locus par excellence of compassionate and caring relationships. The crucial step beyond these insights is the identification of state provision of welfare as the cause, not just a symptom, of the decline of the (idealised) family...
'...The policies which follow synthesise the concerns of neo-liberalism with those of moral conservatism. The reduction of state welfare becomes a moral imperative necessary to restore the family. ... The spheres of market relations (material self interest) and domesticity (love and support) can thus resume their appropriate gender specifications.' (Friedman and Friedman 1980:115).

Government programs which affect the decisions of women with children about taking employment or staying at home (child care, tax allowances, sole parent pensions) are often those most keenly debated
by those concerned to increase the self-reliance of families. Family participation in labour markets since the 1980s has been characterised by polarisation into increasing numbers of two earner and no earner families. While employment has grown, particularly part time employment, it has not grown fast enough to accommodate the increasing numbers seeking work. Population growth and increasing labour force participation rates of women, together with recessions slowing the rate of jobs growth, have seen growing levels of unemployment. Increasing numbers of sole parent families and older unemployed men have added to the debate about the incentive effects of welfare policies and the ability of society to continue to fund social security programs.

Increasing access to income from employment, and the introduction of a number of government benefits for married women at home have reduced the financial dependence of many married women on their husbands, while, of course, making them more subject to the pressures and incentives of the market and government policies.

There have been criticisms of the new 'parenting allowance', for example, precisely because it is seen to reproduce - in fact provide encouragement for - the view that a parent should be at home with the children. Farrar (1994, 14-15) suggests that whether the new measures are seen as progressive or conservative will depend on the weight that is given to different objectives. If you believe that no support should be given to an expectation of a period of substantial 'parenting' (beyond the first few months) then this will be seen as undesirable. If, on the other hand, it is considered that undermining the notion of 'intra-family' dependence is most important, then the provision of independent income for parenting, at the same time as creating a link between such income and an expectation that parents will return to the paid workforce, might be seen as a small but significant step forward.

Farrer also points out that the federal government's introduction of the Child Support Scheme reopened the debate about whether dependence on the State was better than dependence on individual men. He also suggests that the scheme signals a new role for the State. The 'state has become a mediator - a go between - for individuals no longer bound by the relationships of family, but rather the obligations of past contracts.' (18 Farrar 1994)

While in 1971, 47.4 % of the population was dependent on income transferred within the family and only 10.4 per cent depended on social transfers, by 1992 those whose income depended on ss payments had risen steadily to 27.5 % of the population. A little more than a third of this reflects the inability of the economy to keep pace with increased labour market participation (particularly during the recession) and the consequent growth of unemployment. But a third also reflects the increasing number of women and children no longer supported by a family wage earner. (Farrar 1994, 15) The remainder reflects the increased number of older people and the increased availability of disability payments.

The increasing involvement of married women in paid employment, Snooks suggests, has resulted not so much from a change in the values and aspirations of families as a restructuring of labour market demand. He points out that there has been an increase in real and relative female wage rates since the 1950s, suggesting that the increase in demand for labour tended to exceed supply. This increase in employment opportunities occured at a time when extra money income was considered desirable because of an unprecedented expansion in the amount and range of consumer durables and facilitated the transfer of female labour from the household to the market sector by substituting electrical household equipment for household labour.

'The fact that this transfer of married female labour from household to market, largely on a part time basis, has been accompanied by an increase in real wage rates for females, reinforces the argument that this radical change has been demand led. ... There can be little doubt that changes in the nature and structure of the household economy would not have taken place without a transformation of the market economy. Our examination of the lack of fundamental change in both sectors for the previous century, despite the surging feminist demand for change, is eloquent evidence of this.' (Snooks 1994, pp122-3)

'The major issue is the persistent specialization of Australian married women in full-time household work for over three quarters of the country's European history, and then, in the last half of the twentieth century, their sudden and dramatic shift into the market economy....available evidence suggests that social values are forged by economic change, not economic change by social values. ... No amount of political rhetoric, social rationalization, or sexual discrimination could resist these fundamental and massive changes in what is basically an open society. This was a victory, not for feminism, ... But for economic man. ... No amount of male chauvinism in the post-Second World War period could have prevented it. (Snooks p83)

Aborigines and the retreat of the welfare state

One of the goals of the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy (AEDP) was the reduction of Aboriginal welfare dependency to levels commensurate with that of the total population by the year 2000. The other two goals of importance were to increase employment and income equality. Altman and Smith (1993) raise the possibility that there might be inverse and unintended trade-offs between the three AEDP goals: in particular, reduced welfare dependency in the current economic climate may hamper the goal of income equality; and the pursuit of statistical equality between Aboriginal and other Australians may inadvertently result in greater inequities within the Aboriginal population.

Moreover, Altman and Sanders note that in Australia, as elsewhere in the developed world, there is now a general retreat of the welfare state and that the welfare state of the 1990s may be less generous in its provisions for Aboriginal people. Moreover, while unemployment remains high, 'those, like many Aborigines, with few skills, little work experience and a locational disadvantage will have difficulty finding gainful employment. It is difficult, therefore, to see how the economic situation of Aboriginal people can be improved and their welfare dependence lessened in the immediate future.' Altman and Sanders (1991, p17)

Writing in 1985, Healey et al described public policy towards Aboriginal people as having moved through several phases over the last two hundred years. In the first years of colonisation, alongside the unofficial destruction of Aboriginal people and culture, the official policy was one of protection. For over a century Aborigines were perceived as a dwindling race, and the aim was to smooth the dying pillow. By the 1930s, the policy had shifted to one of assimilation: the aim was to submerge Aborigines into the larger Australian population. During the 1960s public concern about the condition of Aboriginal people gathered momentum. The restrictive state legislation was abolished by the end of the 1960s in all states except Queensland. The Aboriginal struggle then moved to broader questions of Aboriginal identity, compensation and political and economic power. (Healey et al 1985 p292-3)

In summary,

7. Discussion

McEwan says, for example,
Clearly, working-class, rural and urban have been the fundamental divisions cutting across Australian society.
The ideal bougeois family in which women and children depended totally on the earnings of the male breadwinner for survival was unheard of in struggling rural and urban working-class families. Not only at harvest time, nor only country children eg casual work in the small craft Adelaide economy of late C19th. higher rates of absenteeism from school of girls - suggesting kept home to perform unpaid domestic tasks. When schooling was not compulsory, Grimshaw and Fahey suggest that many children never attended - instead of starting school at five they began to work either looking after smaller brothers and sisters or minding animals. Despite education acts of 1870s and early 1880s, it was only in the early twentieth century that legn forced working-class children into schools. (McEwan, pp 190-1)

But not possible to adequately address the impact of these factors in this paper.

Have examined extent to which families have done things for themselves and the changing patterns of family interactions with markets, govts, voluntary associations. Each period raises several issues for further research and debate.

1. What do we mean by self-reliance? Dependence and self-reliance are ambiguous concepts and may be doubtful as social goals. If we start from a simple definition of self-reliance as situations where the individual or family does everything for themselves - growing and consuming their own food, clothing, shelter etc without handouts, exchange or purchase from others - then few families in Australia are ever likely to have been self-reliant.

In section 1 the paper referred to evidence of high degrees of co-operation and interdependence among Australian families prior to white settlement. Traditional Aboriginal families appear to have had high levels of interdependence with other members of the tribe eg to supplement food supplies. Early Colonial families too, while they were much less involved with markets, governments and voluntary organisations than most people today, were not self-reliant; depending on market exchanges of their produce for much of their food, furnishings etc. Certainly the extremes of the continuum of self reliance are impossible or rare for the individual - everyone depends on help from others at some points in their life (while infants, sick) and very few are entirely dependent on others for everything throughout their life. Even the able bodied self employed depend on governments for law and order.

Over the last 200 years, the broad trend appears to be towards increasing involvement of families with labour markets to obtain incomes, with professionals to obtain schooling and health services, with product and service markets to obtain food, clothing, child care and many other goods and services at one time produced by family members for their own use. In terms of the simple concept of self reliance, this suggests increasing family dependency on people and organisations outside the immediate family.

However, this concept of self-reliance needs reconsideration if it is to be useful in modern policy terms because in most private and public aspects of life, co-operation, specialisation and exchange have brought substantial advances in efficiency and standards of living. The evidence presented suggests an ongoing trend to increased interaction and interdependence between people and social institutions, not self-containment. Complete self-reliance of individuals or families is unlikely to be in the best interests of families or society generally. Similarly, reducing dependency needs to be clarified as a conditional rather than an absolute objective, since there are many situations where it is in the interests of individuals and of society for people to be dependent on others - to undertake schooling or care for young children, for example.

Not all interactions indicate dependence. Most people act out their daily lives in social networks in which they exchange money, goods, services, emotional support, etc., with kin, friends, neighbours, etc, and do not see their independence compromised by the mere fact of receiving from others. Similarly, where people organise together to establish a company, a credit union, or a political party and obtain benefits thereby, it is arguable that this represents self-reliance rather dependency. Governments and commercial organisations are not separate from individuals and families who make up society.

The key concepts in the notion of independence, according to White and Groves (1997), are control and reciprocation. Where there is exchange, where there are alternatives and choice or control can be exercised, the parties are interdependent rather than dependent. If these concepts are accepted as important and relevant, more work is needed to clarify distinctions between dependency and interdependency and to relate proposals for change to a broader concept of self-reliance. What choices and alternatives are available to people who are dependent? What resources do they need to become independent and have a basis for exchange with markets, the community, government? What economic and social costs arise from dependency, what costs attach to proposed alternatives?

2. Families and markets. With increasing urbanisation, exchange or sale of goods and services, and methods of mass production, the long term trend for families in Australia is towards increasing use of commercially produced goods, specialist services, and declining family production. Involvement of women in paid employment appears to have been high for working class families from early days of white settlement but, apart from the two world wars, to be a relatively recent phenomenon for middle and upper class families. The steady trend to increased labour market involvement of married women may thus conflict with expectations about increased self-provision by families, particularly if men don't play a greater role in domestic tasks or caring for dependents (Bittman, 1998). Legislation (such as Child labour laws and compulsory education), the aspirations and capacity of families to have young people undertake many years of education, and a decline in full-time jobs for teenagers, have combined to reduce the involvement of youth in paid employment.

Gilding identifies a long term process wherein families have become increasingly dependent for employment on organisations which are increasingly remote from the household economy. In earlier times the market economy was not so differentiated from the household economy. In nineteenth century Australia capitalist activity was mainly conducted by a large number of small producers and firms, organised around kinship and often located in the home. The smallest business drew upon the unpaid labour of family members, including women and children. The largest firms were still family companies, which were passed on from one generation to the next. From the late c19th business units became larger, reflected in the formation of stock exchanges in the major cities. Small businesses survived, especially in the rural sector. Nonetheless, the economy was increasingly dominated by giant multi-divisional companies characterised by dispersed ownership and professional management. This shift gathered pace in the aftermath of the Second WW, and was conceptualised in a variety of ways; by functionalist sociologists in terms of the functional differentiation of social institutions, by Marxists in terms of the concentration of capital, and by Weberians in terms of the rationalisation of social life. Whatever the conceptual framework, the shift amounted to a sharper distinction between the market and the household economy.' (Gilding 1997, 73 -)
Implication:? companies now less bound to any particular place, or to their employees, more competition, more pressure for returns to shareholders, less able to be good citizens?

3. The relationships of families with voluntary associations and governments seem to have fluctuated over time and further research on the reasons for changing family involvement with government and not-for-profit organisations may provide useful insights for the organisation and delivery of a range of services. Eg As described in section 4 above, in the past, large numbers of Australians had involvement in voluntary organisations providing a range of services for their members. What were the shortcomings that led to their decline? What are the implications for private health insurance and other potential methods of promoting self-reliance through insurance?

The relationship of families with governments in Australia has been different to that in Britain and many European countries. The practice of Australian governments providing subsidies through private charities rather than direct provision of support appears to have become established soon after white settlement. The emphasis on centralised wage fixing and full employment as the major means of enabling families to be self-reliant has been said to be a unique feature of the Australian system (Castles).

What appears to be a new trend is for governments to extend the application of market forces to the setting of wage levels and to many of the services formerly provided by government or community organisations (public housing, child care, meals on wheels). Cass notes that this has so far involved change from full employment to high levels of unemployment, under-employment and long-term unemployment, and changes to the Australian system of centralised wage fixation towards decentralised enterprise bargaining and individual contracts. (Cass in Bittman 1997)

Paul Krugman suggests that the faith being placed in market principles is ignoring some lessons from the past.
'The worldwide rejection of the market that took place in the first half of this century was not a matter of mere accident, or of the mysterious dominance of some misguided ideology. Free-market capitalism had proved, in the eyes of most people who thought about it, to be unstable, unjust, and ineffective. The world between the wars had been wracked by financial crises ...The turn away from the market, and toward the state, was based - or so everyone thought - on the hard lessons of experience. It is therefore an astonishing reversal of fortune that, as we approach the century's end, nearly all the world has returned to more or less the same ideology of free markets and sound money that prevailed at its beginning. (Krugman, 1998).

Some of those who believe that the welfare state has undermined self-reliance nonetheless see its theoretical advantages and some of the difficulties of equity, certainty and efficiency associated with greater involvement of families or voluntary associations in support of those in need.

'The Welfare State is an attractive notion. .. At last we have created a society which functions as a true community, caring for the weak, the old and the poor, and at the same time considerate of the interests of all. ...The Welfare State is the family writ large, but writ according to impartial and publicly ascertainable rules.' (Tapper 1990, 23)

While Tapper (and others) say the practice of government provision of welfare has failed to meet its objectives, others raise questions about the accuracy of this assessment and suggest that what is required is a continuing process of adjustment of boundaries. Beilharz et al for example

'there is certainly some basis for the proposition that the welfare state is disintegrating, underfunded, suffering a crisis of legitimacy or support, and under attack from 'left' and 'right' alike. Our argument in this connection is that this is nothing new, for the state is essentially contested terrain. In this sense, what is often meant by the idea of a 'crisis of the welfare state' is that the idea of the welfare state shifts; the state is now more minimalist, now more expansive; there is always a debate over the state, (Beilharz et al 1992, 17)

There is a need to examine, therefore, how far the provisions of the Welfare State have in fact failed families and how new measures to reduce dependence on government are affecting family well-being and stability. The potential risks, inequities and inefficiencies that can be associated with non-government organisations is a further issue of importance in the debate about measures to promote self-reliance. How much regulation of not-for-profit community organisations is needed to meet objectives of widespread coverage, non-discrimination and economic viability for high needs groups, or in years or geographic areas of high needs?

4. Dependency and self reliance are largely socially conditioned.

Much dependency is socially constructed. The extent of self-reliance and dependency in society can be said to be socially determined, not only because of differing definitions, but also because the options available to many individuals are socially determined. As described in Section 4, for most of this century, full employment has been a particularly important part of the capacity of white families to obtain comparatively high standards of living through involvement in labour markets. Transitions from financial dependence on parents or government social security payments, to income from employment, is very much dependent upon the extent to which society ensures that employment opportunities are available. This raises questions about the resources that individuals and families need in order to be more self-reliant.

This issue requires research at several levels. One group of questions for further analysis relates to the place of employment in overcoming the dependency of particular groups, measures to increase levels of employment or redistribute it, and whether there are proposals to increase self-reliance which can compensate for lack of employment.

Jill Roe points out that during the Depression, the unemployed showed qualities of resourcefulness, self-reliance and self-respect that the unemployed may lack today. What are the resources available to workless people today? Has our cash economy destroyed the ability to make or mend? Roe suggests that it may be time to foster resources with programs that educate and plan for increasing and more satisfying leisure. 'In the absence of a thorough redefinition of work or provision of jobs, this could at least provide skills that are not necessarily stamped with the stigma of unemployment.' (Roe 1983).

Williams (l997) also points out that the availability of some support services are a precondition for the reduced dependence. The rationing of access to the HACC program affects its ability to act as a vehicle for the prevention of socially structured physical dependency for people with disabilities. Similarly, the maintenance of cognitive abilities in later life has been found to be influenced by the individual's environment, with increased environmental complexity related to effective cognitive functioning. Nursing hostels impose restrictions on elderly persons and as such foster dependence. (Collins et al 1997).

5. Rise of welfare state and individual autonomy.

The period since the second WW has been shown to be largely one of increased government intervention to provide services and reduce inequality. Substantial increases in government provision of pensions, education, health, etc.

Two other themes of importance in terms of self-reliance and families.

1. Growing acceptance of the rights of the individual relative to the group (eg family) and, the development of competing models for family and individual life: individualisation.

McDonald speaks of The 'pull' of this tension over the centuries has undoubtedly been toward increasing personal autonomy or liberalisation. 'In broad terms, today's family values reflect the continued extension of individual rights to adults, including the right to determine the ways in which they live their lives...the emphasis has been on the rights of the individual family member rather than on the rights of the family as a group unit' (McDonald, 1995:46).

The norms and values associated with living together, marriage, and family life have been significantly reshaped in the last 30 years. There is now a variety of models of the relationships thought to provide a basis for successful families or households: in addition to the nuclear family/male breadwinner model, for example, there are advocates of two earner, gender equity, gay, childless and companionate households (Pinkney 1995). Nor is it simply that at any one time there is an increased diversity of household forms: over time most adults will contemplate moving from one model to another and many will experience an array of living arrangements. The greater diversity of models, increased social acceptability of many of them, and the increased readiness of people to make their own decisions, have increased the uncertainty of individual and family life.

2. Many of the changes in government provision recognise separate rights of married women - Intervention to Support women and children: property settlements, sole parents pensions, payments to carers, split UB.

Society also more ready to intervene - child abuse, domestic violence, no fault divorce, child support. Family also 'recognised as a sphere in which violence, exploitation and marginalisation all too often had a free rein; in large measure outside the social protection which existed in the public domain.' (Inglis et al 1994, pp 6-7)

Greater range of options (income sources, household models) entails greater range of risks and increased uncertainty. The consequences attaching to many of these risks, however, have been made less severe, particularly for women, by increased access to employment, expanded and increased pensions and allowances for children, and redirection of social security payments from men to women. It is argued that many of the worst consequences of marriage and separation have been reduced by such changes, affecting women's relationships with labour markets, governments and partners. Increased access to income and marital property have made transitions more possible - from single to defacto, marriage, separation, repartnering, or single parenthood.

Policy changes which affect social exchanges - within families, or between families and other institutions, are more likely now to have impacts on family stability. This suggests that proposals which shift boundaries between families and governments need to be assessed for their impacts on the family and the individuals within it.

6. The self-reliant family and the role of women.

Others point to the strength of family ties and loyalty as a substitute for adequate collective provison of assistance: 'The family is fundamentally a selfish institution, encouraging a morality of 'charity begins at home', which is the antithesis of collectivist or truly communitarian values. It not only reproduces advantage and disadvantage, but it even more seriously disadvantages those who have small or weak families. So if lone mothers are stretched and disadvantaged it is because the family is such a privileged site of caring and mutual aid. It not only makes the rest of society seem bleak and unwelcoming, it also weakens non-familial networks and institutions that might provide support and comfort.' (McIntosh, 1996, l55).

Certainly there is a need for more research on gender factors in discussions about dependency and self reliance: Who is affected by proposals for reduced dependency, dependency of whom? on whom? for what?
Some changes shift dependency rather than enable independence. Eg the extension of the parental means test makes students and unemployed dependent on parents rather than government.
In some instances the change in economic arrangements will have beneficial impacts on the young people and the family, in others there may be substantial negative effects, including family breakup. Dependency on market or dependency on family (partner or parents) may be just as bad for individuals and society as dependency on govt. What conditions are needed to ensure that economic transfers - between partners, within families, in the labour market, from governments - promote independence rather than conflict and dependency?

However, the broad range of the groups concerned about self reliance suggest that this is an important policy issue and more complex than turning the clock back to the 1950s. Policies which would reduce dependency and increase self reliance have been discussed not only by the Coalition Government and groups like Centre for Independent Studies and Institute for Public Affairs. Concerns about dependency focusing on issues of powerlessness come from the left side of politics, and focussing on incentives and obligations from the right side of politics.

Charles Perkins, then secretary of Dept for Aboriginal affairs, has written that 'The challenge for Australia, at all levels of government, is to turn the situation around from total dependence on welfare to self-reliance'. (1989). Similarly an all Aboriginal Task Force on Aboriginal Health (1990) sought means of promoting self-reliance.

Increased self-reliance has also been advocated as a means of reducing a number of traditionally 'left' concerns: inequality between inner and outer areas of Australian cities (Moriarty 1998), poverty in rural areas (McClinton and Pawar 1997), homelessness (Casey et al 1996) and social isolation ? (Latham 1998).

Others, like McDonald, note that the call for greater personal autonomy over the past 30 years has been adult-centred. Many of the changes have involved greater autonomy from the restrictions of parenthood. Both conservatives and liberals, he says, recognise that the increased autonomy provided to adults has caused difficulties for some children and further change is needed to extend and protect the rights of children. (McDonald l995, p47)

Bottomley's concern about self-reliance is also not only with the effects of government provisions on incentives and capacities, but about the intrusion and taking over of family life by professionals. 'The history of modern society can be seen as the assertion of social control over activities once left to individuals or families. Industrial capitalism, as we have seen, took production out of the household and collectivised it, under the employees' supervision, in the factory. Then employers proceeded to appropriate the workers' skills and technical knowledge by means of 'scientific management' and to bring these together under managerial direction. Finally, they extended their control over the worker's private life as well, as doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, child-guidance experts, officers of the juvenile courts and other specialists began to supervise child-rearing, formerly the business of the family. ... they have also made people more and more dependent on the managerial and professional classes - on big business and the state - and thus eroded the capacity for self-help.' (Bottomley 27-8)

This paper has identified a number of issues arising from a review of literature on the self reliance of families in Australia and current debates on dependency and self reliance. The current lack of jobs for many white and black Australians who wish to work, for example, seems a major issue to be faced in the search for measures to reduce dependence on governments. Given the increased role being given to markets and sel-reliant families in the provision of services, more research is needed to evaluate the impacts on communities, families and individuals (particularly mothers). These issues will continue to be important for families and the individuals within them and thus to warrant debate and research rather than rhetoric and ideology.

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