Australian welfare state expenditure revisited: Some implications for change

This article seeks to explore the reasons why Australia, in the period 1965–84, manifested markedly lower levels of income maintenance expenditure than most other OECD nations. A pooled cross‐section research design is utilized to bring within the scope of a single model the wide range of institutional, demographic, economic and political factors that have been hypothesized to influence income maintenance transfers. Having developed such a model, the article examines some of its implications for proposed welfare cut‐backs and reform in Australia and the OECD nations generally.