Hardship in Australia: An Analysis of Financial Stress Indicators in the 1998-99 Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Survey
Thoughts
Head empty
Annotations
bray2001 - p. 19
This result suggests that financial stress is not itself a single concept, but rather it comprises a number different forms of stress and that these impact on different households in different ways.
bray2001 - p. 20
Missing out It suggests an indicator of the extent to which households are missing out on fully participating in daily life because of their financial constraints.
bray2001 - p. 21
Cashflow problems is more concerned with processes rather than outcomes, and relates to what may be considered to be cashflow problems being unable to afford to pay aving had to seek financial assistance
bray2001 - p. 22
Hardship basic type of deprivation, suggesting a potential degree of real hardship in the household, and that the coping mechanisms of pawning and selling items, or reliance upon community organisations for assistance, are closely associated with such an experience
bray2001 - p. 61
The odds of a household in the lowest income quintile experiencing different forms of financial stress, especially at the multiple level, are around double those in the middle income quintile
bray2001 - p. 63
An even larger increase in the odds is associated with renting from State housing authorities. The odds of these households being in some hardship are five times those of homeowners and the odds of multiple hardship nine times as high. The odds for private renters are even higher again. For these two hardship measures they rise to 6 and 12 respectively for those households paying less than 30 per cent of their income as rent and 8 and 18 for those paying more than this proportion.
bray2001 - p. 64
ncome source Interestingly it suggests that those households with pensions and benefits as their main source of income have reduced odds of multiple hardship, once account is taken of the actual income level, although they have higher odds with respect to the other stress measures. The self-employed show the opposite pattern to this, having lower odds on all of the measures, with the exception of multiple hardship.
bray2001 - p. 64
Employment While the odds of a household with no employment experiencing multiple cashflow problems are lower than those of the base case of a single full-time employed person, the odds of other forms of financial stress and of multiple hardship, in particular, are significantly higher.
bray2001 - p. 65
Education For this analysis, a modified scale has been used that uses a variety of cut-off points that vary for different age groups. The results for this variable suggest that the incidence of financial stress is higher for households where the main income-earner has a lower level of educational achievement. With the exception of cashflow problems, where the odds increase slightly only, failure to achieve year 12 education, or its equivalent, increases the odds of missing out or experiencing hardship by a factor of 1.3 to 1.6.
bray2001 - p. 65
Disabilit increase in financial stress in households where a member has a health or disability condition higher odds of financial stress, and especially multiple hardship, amongst those households with a member with severe or moderate disability restrictions relative to those where there was only a work or education restriction
bray2001 - p. 69
While income is important, the incidence of the different forms of financial stress differs on the basis of a wide range of other characteristics, such as family type, age, tenure, occupation, and education.
bray2001 - p. 93
The purpose of the use of Factor Analysis (FA) was to identify whether it was possible to reduce the large set of ABS financial stress variables
bray2001 - p. 94
For the final analysis, the Maximum Likelihood Estimate routine of the SAS Proc Factor procedure was used. While using the criterion of eigenvalues greater than 1 produced 2 factors and a satisfactory factor structure, the initial Principal Components Analysis, as well as an examination of the Scree Plot, suggested that three factors may be more appropriate. This was confirmed in the comparison of the two and three model solutions, which produced marked reductions in the value of Akaike’s Information Criteria (1 374 to 489) and Schwarz’s Bayesian Measure (1 011 to 202).
bray2001 - p. 94
Applying an orthogonal transformation under varimax produced a clear separation of the variables into the three factors. Use of Comrey and Lee’s criterion (Tabachnick & Fidell 1996) of loadings of greater than 0.45 being ‘fair’ as a cut-off produced a clean factor structure with all variables loading at this level or better, and each into a single factor.
bray2001 - p. 95
the first factor representing the ways in which households constrain their activities in accordance with budgetary limitations; • the second factor concerning mechanisms of coping with budgetary shortfalls, either through delaying payments or seeking financial assistance from family or friends; and • the third factor identifying a real failure in household outcomes, with either reliance on ‘last resort’ access to emergency financial aid or selling/pawning an item, or being unable to purchase a meal or heating.