Economic and Social Participation Research Initiative

A Hallmark Research Initiative

The Economic and Social Participation Research Initiative (ESPRIt) will develop our understanding of how participation in and engagement with social, economic and political institutions can be enabled across the life course irrespective of gender, socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial background, as well as other key characteristics. To that end, it will coordinate research efforts across at least six Faculties, bringing together researchers through a range of facilitated events designed to enable them to discover common interests and develop cross-unit and multi-disciplinary collaborations. Participation in work, education, community and sporting clubs, volunteer organisations and social networks of friends and family are essential for individual, family and community stability and well being. With its emphasis on social and economic participation this Hallmark initiative brings together researchers touching on the three Grand Challenges. Issues related to social and economic participation attract the attention of many eminent scholars around the University, but this research is dispersed, often taking place in isolation within individual disciplines and faculties.

ESPRIt is coordinated by two chairs and two academic convenors, who work in consultation with a Steering Committee made up of representatives from a range of disciplines.

Co-Chair Associate Professor Belinda Hewitt

Belinda is Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Policy in the School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts. Her research interests are gender differences in the experiences of family, work and health over the life course, such as the impact of paid parental leave for mothers, paid and unpaid labour in households, and the causes and consequences of family life course transitions for individuals.

Co-Chair Professor Guyonne Kalb

Guyonne is Director of the Labour Economics and Social Policy Program at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics. Her research interests include labour supply issues, in particular related to women; the interaction of labour supply, social security and taxation; labour supply and childcare; and labour supply of disadvantaged groups

Academic Convenor Dr Barbara Broadway

Barbara is a Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics. Her research focuses on welfare policies and family policies, and how they affect female and maternal labour supply as well as the labour force participation of older workers and people with disabilities.

Academic Convenor Dr Rennie Lee

Rennie is currently a lecturer/assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Melbourne. From 2015-2016, she was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Irvine's Center for Research on International Migration. Rennie completed my Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA in June, 2015. Her research and teaching interests include international migration, race and ethnicity, sociology of education, and quantitative research methods.

Academic Convenor Dr Geoffrey Mead

Geoffrey is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts. His research interests include: the role of prizes in determining cultural value and the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu.

Academic Convenor Dr Julie Moschion

Julie joined the Melbourne Institute as a Research Fellow in October 2010 and was promoted to Senior Research Fellow in 2015.
She graduated from the French National School of Statistics and Economic Administration (Ensae) in 2005. Julie holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Paris 1 (June 2009). In her PhD studies, she studied the relationship between fertility, labour force participation of mothers and family policies.

Academic Convenor Dr Anna Zhu

Anna is a Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics. Her research interests include: evaluating the impacts of welfare policies, particularly for mothers and children; labour supply of disadvantaged groups; and early childhood development.

Belinda Hewitt (Faculty of Arts) – co-Chair
Belinda is Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Policy in the School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts. Her research interests are gender differences in the experiences of family, work and health over the life course, such as the impact of paid parental leave for mothers, paid and unpaid labour in households, and the causes and consequences of family life course transitions for individuals.

Guyonne Kalb (Faculty of Business and Economics) – co-Chair
Guyonne is Director of the Labour Economics and Social Policy Program at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics. Her research interests include labour supply issues, in particular related to women; the interaction of labour supply, social security and taxation; labour supply and childcare; and labour supply of disadvantaged groups.

Jeff Borland (Faculty of Business and Economics) – member
Jeff is Truby Williams Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Business and Economics. His research interests are the operation of labour markets in Australia, and program and policy evaluation. He is currently undertaking ARC funded projects on the effects of technology and trade on the Australian labour market, and a randomised controlled trial of the Early Years Education Program.

Hernán Cuervo (Melbourne Graduate School of Education)
Hernán is an Associate Professor in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and Deputy Director of the Youth Research Centre. His research interests focus on sociology of youth, specifically in relation to youth transitions; rural education and rural young people, focusing on the tension of aspirations and belonging; and theory of justice applied to educational issues.

Beth Gaze (Melbourne Law School) – member
Beth Gaze is Professor in the Melbourne Law School. Her research interests focus on equality rights, anti-discrimination law, and the rights of women (including work and care issues), people with disabilities and racial /ethnic minorities; in these areas she focusses on both the law contained in legislation and case law, as well as its operation, enforcement, and effects.

John Howe (Melbourne School of Government) – member
Professor John Howe is Director of the University of Melbourne School of Government and was previously Co-Director of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law at the Law School. John's research interests include labour market policy and regulation, regulatory theory, and corporate accountability. He has written extensively on the role of the state in regulating employment and labour markets, and on the intersection between state-based regulation and corporate governance. John is presently engaged in research concerning regulatory enforcement of minimum employment standards in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. He is also researching how large business organisations engage in self-regulation of labour practices through internal policy and rule-making processes, and the interaction between these policies and employment laws.

Crystal Legacy (Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning) – member
Crystal Legacy is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Deputy Director of the Informal Urbanism Research Hub (InfUr-) and a former recipient of the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellowship (DECRA). Crystal conducts research in a wide range of areas, including transport, housing, strategic planning, urban conflict and the urban politics of infrastructure planning. Crystal’s current research examines the politics of urban transportation planning with a specific focus on the role of citizen participation in contested transport processes in Australian and Canadian cities, and the governance and urban planning implications of future urban transport. Crystal has widely published in a range of national and international journals and outlets such as The Conversation. She is the co-editor of two books Building Inclusive Cities: Women’s safety and the right to the city (Routledge, 2013) and of Instruments of Planning: Tensions and Challenge for more Equitable and Sustainable Cities (Routledge, 2016) and is on the Editorial Board of the journals Planning Theory and Practice and Urban Policy and Research.

Allison Milner (Melbourne School Population and Global Health) – member
Allison is a Deputy Director of the Disability and Health Unit, Melbourne School Population and Global Health, the University of Melbourne. Her current areas of research interests include the influence of gender, employment characteristics, quality of work, and occupation as determinants of mental health and suicide. Allison focuses on specific groups that may be particularly likely to face disadvantage in terms of obtaining and staying in work, such as people with disabilities. Allison’s work ranges across a number of externally-funded etiologic and intervention projects. She works with key policy stakeholders to promote research on the link between employment and psychosocial disability.

Miranda Stewart (Melbourne Law School) – member
Miranda Stewart is a Professor at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne and a Fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University. Miranda has 25 years of research, practical and leadership experience in taxation law and policy in academia, government and the private sector. She engages in research, policy advice and teaching across a wide range of tax policy and law design topics. Recent research addresses taxation of corporations; budget institutions; gender equality in the tax and transfer system; and resilience, legitimacy and effectiveness of tax systems and tax reform.

We have identified relevant research effort across the University and grouped these according to five research foci. These foci represent different lenses through which economic and social participation are being examined at UoM.

Individual: People vary in their capabilities and capacity to engage with social and economic life. A wide range of factors influence individual capability and capacity, such as social and demographic factors including age, gender, racial and ethnic background, socioeconomic factors including education, employability and human capital, and health, well-being and disability

Family: Family both constrains and facilitates social and economic participation. One of the most significant changes to occur in family life over the last few decades is the emergence of dual-earner households. How do families successfully combine paid employment, housework and child rearing? Housing affordability, employment opportunities and household income all influence decisions couples make about when to marry and when to have children.

Populations: Individuals and families can be grouped into populations, for example by gender, ethnicity, or disability. The needs for support of these individuals and families in their social and economic participation may be quite different.

Built environment: The built environment substantially impacts on social and economic participation, and families’ ability to achieve work-life balance. It influences the liveability of cities and the capacity for people to access good jobs and housing. Planning determines access between affordable housing, schools, childcare centres, and employment precincts via walking, cycling or public transport.

Public Policy: The political system in Australia operates at a local, a state and the federal level, each with their own institutions and policies. The Government at all levels plays a key role in influencing employment and work-family balance. What should the role of Government be? What legislation is needed? How much legislation is needed? How does Government best enable individuals, families and communities to fully participate in society and in employment? Are there unintended consequences of policy?

Crosscutting these research foci are themes of gender, ethnicity, discrimination, social inclusion, and wellbeing.

Seed-funding goals

The overarching goal of the ESPRIt Hallmark Initiative is to broaden and deepen existing collaborations, and bring together researchers who have not previously collaborated, with the aim of generating new knowledge, insights and ideas. To that end, ESPRIt provides seed-funding for interdisciplinary research projects.

Third Round - 2019 - NOW OPEN

The third round of ESPRIt's seed-funding is now open. Applications close by COB 6 May 2019. Notification of outcomes will be made by 31 May 2019. Find the applications form here.

The overarching goal of the third seed funding round (2019) will be to bring together researchers who have not previously collaborated, with the aim of generating new knowledge, insights and ideas on topics related to economic and social participation. A key requirement for seed funding applications will be cross-disciplinary research and the inclusion of early career researchers on the team. Find the seed-funding rules here.

Second Round - 2018 - CLOSED

We have recently concluded the second seed-funding round. Four projects were funded:

1) 'Gender diversity narratives in the Australian context' by Holly Lawford-Smith from the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Cordelia Fine from the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, and Victor Sojo from the Centre for Workplace Leadership (Faculty of Business and Economics).

2) 'Reaching full potential: identifying sexual and reproductive health services for young people in Australia' by Humaira Maheen, Meghan Bohren, Sarah Khaw, Cathy Vaughn (all from the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health) and Celia McMichael from the School of Geography.

3) 'A socio-economic exploration of Melbourne's African migrants: public housing as an incubator' by Sandra Carrasco Mansilla, Majdi Faleh, Andrea Cook (all from the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning) and Ashleigh Haw from the School of Culture and Communication (Faculty of Arts).

4) 'Using machine learning to examine neighbourhood characteristics associated with physical function' by Jerome Rachele from the Centre for Health Equity (School of Population and Global Health), Jasper Wijnands and Haifeng Zhao from the Melbourne School of Design, Bec Bentley from the School of Population and Global Health, and Mark Stevenson from the Melbourne School of Design.

For more details on the projects see our project page.

First Round - 2017 - CLOSED

The first ESPRIt seed-funding round, which was restricted to early career researchers, has just been completed. On 14th December 2017, we held an early career researcher networking event to provide the opportunity for researchers from different disciplines and Faculties to discuss ideas for joint research projects. The event was well-attended with 15 participants from four of the six faculties associated with the Hallmark initiative. Applications were submitted in February and four projects were funded:

1) ‘Stigma and segregation: investigating attitudes towards public housing in rapidly changing neighbourhoods in Melbourne’ by Katrina Raynor from the Melbourne School of Design, Camilo Ordóñez from School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, and Laura Panza from the Department of Economics.

2) ‘Theoretical explanations for socioeconomic inequalities in multi-morbidity among adults’ by Ankur Singh and Tania King from Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Emily You from Department of Psychiatry, Melbourne's Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences, and Diana Contreras Suarez from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

3) ‘Does more information result in better health care choices? Evidence from NBN expansion in Australia’ by Gideon Aschwanden from the Melbourne School of Design; and Arezou Zaresani and Diana Contreras Suarez from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

4) ‘Text selection in the senior English curriculum’ by Alexander Bacalja from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and Lauren Bliss from the Faculty of Arts.

For more details on the projects see our project page.

Seed-funding goals

2017 Round

The first ESPRIt seed-funding round, which was restricted to early career researchers, has been completed. On 14th December 2017, we held an early career researcher networking event to provide the opportunity for researchers from different disciplines and Faculties to discuss ideas for joint research projects. The event was well-attended with 15 participants from four of the six faculties associated with the Hallmark initiative. Applications were submitted in February and four projects were funded.

2018 Round

We have recently concluded the second seed-funding round. Again, four projects were funded.

ESPRIt Events

Past

Inaugural Event - Uncovering Synergies
ESPRIt ran its inaugural workshop and networking event "Uncovering Synergies" on Wednesday the 21st of June. See here for more detail.

20 Oct 2017 News

There are a number of ways to connect with the Economic and Social Participation Research Initiative, and we would love to hear from you!

For general enquiries, please email esprit-contact@unimelb.edu.au

Other Related Hallmark Initiatives:

Ageing Research Initiative

Indigenous Research Initiative

Disability Research Initiative

Children's Lives Research Initiative

Seed-funding goals

Third Round - 2019 - NOW OPEN

Second Round - 2018 - CLOSED

First Round - 2017 - CLOSED

Seed-funding goals

2017 Round

Text selection in the senior English curriculum

Does more information result in better health care choices? Evidence from NBN expansion in Australia

Stigma and segregation: investigating attitudes towards public housing in rapidly changing neighbourhoods in Melbourne

Theoretical explanations for socioeconomic inequalities in multi-morbidity among adults

2018 Round

Gender diversity narratives in the Australian context

Reaching full potential: identifying sexual and reproductive health services for young people in Australia

A socio-economic exploration of Melbourne's African migrants: public housing as an incubator

Using machine learning to examine neighbourhood characteristics associated with physical function

ESPRIt Events

Past

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