Books, book chapters and journal articles

Books

Book cover

O'Sullivan, S., McGann, M.  and Considine, M. (2021)  Buying and Selling the Poor, Sydney: Sydney University Press.

Buying and Selling the Poor ventures behind the scenes of the multibillion-dollar welfare-to-work system, offering new insights into how Australia responds to unemployment and disadvantage. As the authors tell the story of four local employment offices, they paint a vivid picture of a critically important social service which many people are aware of but which few properly understand. They also reveal the wider impacts that processes of marketisation and welfare reform have had on these frontline services over decades, and how the work of frontline staff and service providers has been transformed.

Buying and Selling the Poor looks closely at how these services operate, why some succeed where others fail, and what can be learned from the stories of staff and clients who have navigated the system. Three decades into this market experiment, how well are we doing in supporting our most vulnerable citizens to get back to work?

Book cover

Considine, M., Lewis, J., O'Sullivan, S. and Sol, E. (2015), Getting Welfare to Work: Street-Level Governance in Australia, the UK and the Netherlands, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Getting Welfare to Work traces the radical reform of the Australian, UK, and Dutch public employment services systems. Starting with major changes from 1998, this book examines how each national system has moved from traditional public services towards more privately provided and market-based methods.

Contracting-out Welfare Services: Comparing National Policy Designs for Unemployment Assistance

Considine, M. and O'Sullivan, S., (eds.) (2015), Contracting-out Welfare Services: Comparing National Policy Designs for Unemployment Assistance, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell

Contracting-out Welfare Services focuses on the design and overhaul of welfare-to-work systems around the world in the light of the radical re-design of the welfare system; internationally based authors utilise a national/program case study, considering employment services policy and activation practices.

Book chapters

  • Considine, M., O’Sullivan, S. and Nguyen, P. (2015), “Governance, Boards of Directors and the Impact of Contracting on Not-for-profit (NFP) Organisations: an Australian study,” in Considine, M. and O’Sullivan, S. (eds.,) Contracting-out Welfare Services: Comparing National Policy Designs for Unemployment Assistance, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 55-74

Journal articles

Journal articles 2012-2009

Other engagement