Phone: +61 (02) 9385 7808
Email: bettina.cass@unsw.edu.au

Full CV [PDF]

Photo: MEDIAKOO

Biography:

Professor Bettina Cass (BA (Hons), PhD UNSW is Professorial Fellow, SPRC. Previously, she was Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney and Professor of Australian Studies in the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. She has been Director of several large Government Inquiries and reviews concerned with family policies and family income support, social security, labour market policies, housing needs of women and children, ageing, retirement incomes and disabilities. She has also been a commissioner on NSW and Commonwealth Law Reform Commissions on social policy references (including children' services and aged care services) and a consultant to the OECD on social policies in Eastern Europe. She has also carried out research and consultations in partnership with community-based organisations. She is a member of the South Australian Government’s Social Inclusion Board. Her publications include chapters, articles books and reports covering research and policy analysis across the life-course in Australia and internationally: childhood and young people; family policies through the tax/transfer system; formal and informal care-giving for people with disability and ill health, with special reference to young people who provide care; ageing and retirement incomes; grandparents as primary carers of their grandchildren; policies which make a difference for young people in disadvantaged circumstances; policies concerned with the balancing of work and family/care responsibilities; welfare state restructuring and its impacts on families, employment, unemployment and disability policies; housing policies; Indigenous people’s welfare.

HDR Supervision:

Bettina Cass has an extensive record of higher degree research student supervision, recently and currently supervising PhD students in the fields of family tax/benefit policies in Australia and the UK; grandchildren in kinship care arrangements in Aboriginal families; community care services for older people; retirement incomes policies in Australia and the UK; welfare reform: impacts on parents with children; disability policies in Australia and the USA; voluntary home visiting services for parents with young children; and a range of other topics in Australian and comparative social policy.

Research Areas:

Comparative analysis of policies for families with dependent children and carers for people with disability in Australia and internationally, with special reference to young people who are care-givers; historical and comparative analysis of the family tax/benefit system in Australia and internationally; studies of the interconnections of employment and family responsibilities, including care of children and other forms of care for people with disability; policies for young people in disadvantaged circumstances; changes in income support for people with a disability; Indigenous people and social policies; ageing and retirement incomes.

Research:

Current research projects include:

• Participation, social networks, care-provision and the well-being of older Australians
• Young carers: their participation in education, the labour force and social networks, identifying the costs and benefits of their care-giving
• Combinations of formal and informal care provision through the life-course in the context of welfare reform
• Grandparents as primary carers for their grandchildren in informal and formal circumstances: experiences and outcomes for grandparents and grandchildren
• Making a difference: building on children's perspectives on econmic adversity
• Active Ageing: the social economic dimensions

Recent research projects include:

• Comparative analysis of policies for sole parent families in Australia and the USA
• Historical analysis of the family tax/benefit system in Australia
• Studies of the interconnections of employment and family responsibilities, including care of children and other forms of care for vulnerable adults
• Changes in income support for people with a disability
• Indigenous people and social security policies

More on Current research projects