Stronger Families in Australia study: the impact of Communities for Children

Appendix F: Robustness of the overall impact of the CfC intervention on jobless households

This appendix addresses the robustness of the overall impact of the CfC intervention on the rates of jobless households in the CfC and contrast sites. As was stated in Section 5.1, there was evidence to suggest that children in CfC sites were less likely to reside in jobless households at Wave 3 than their counterparts in contrast sites. In this section, we test whether these differences can be attributed to the large percentage of jobless households in one contrast site at Wave 3 (asic_14), to make sure that the poor state of the local economy in one CfC site, and not positive impacts of the CfC initiative, was at play. Figure F1 shows that the probability of being in a jobless household for families in asic_14 was 33.8 per cent, which is higher than in any other site.

Figure F1: Jobless households at Wave 3

Figure F1: Jobless households at Wave 3

Note: A predicted probability of 1.00 means that 100 per cent of households are jobless; a predicted probability of 0.00 means that 0 per cent of households are jobless.

Although there was a fairly large rate of joblessness in one contrast site (33.8 per cent in Wave 3), the differences between CfC and non-CfC sites were still fairly robust.³⁶ When the proportion of jobless households in this contrast site was taken into account in the regression estimates, the gap in the rate of jobless households at Wave 3 dropped from 7.8 per cent to 5.5 per cent but was still statistically significant at the 0.07 level (t=–1.97, p=0.07). Moreover, the difference-in-difference estimates were still statistically significant (odds ratio=0.73, t=–2.74, p<0.05). Another way to observe the impact of asic_14 is to observe the predicted probabilities of children residing in a jobless household, including the effect of asic_14, and then examine the predicted probabilities when asic_14 is excluded from the analysis. Figure F2 presents predicted probabilities of children residing in jobless households when asic_14 is included and Figure F3 shows the difference from the overall results when asic_14 is excluded. Comparing the two figures, we can see that the rate of jobless households in contrast sites is reduced for all three waves, but the gap between CfC and contrast sites still widens at Wave 3.

Table F1: Robustness of jobless household results, testing the influence of one contrast site (asic_14)—difference-in-difference estimates
	Coefficient	Robust standard error	t-value	Significance	95% confidence interval	Odds ratio
Wave 2	0.02	0.13	0.15	0.88	–0.23 to 0.27	1.02
Wave 3	–0.01	0.06	–0.13	0.90	–0.13 to 0.11	0.99
CfC	–0.04	0.12	–0.33	0.74	–0.28 to 0.20	0.96
CfC*Wave 2	–0.15	0.20	–0.77	0.44	–0.53 to 0.23	0.86
CfC*Wave 3 (DD)	–0.37	0.21	–1.77	0.08	–0.77 to 0.04	0.69
Gender (1=female)	0.05	0.08	0.60	0.55	–0.11 to 0.20	1.05
Child is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin	1.08	0.16	6.83	0.00	0.77 to 1.40	2.96
Mother’s age	–0.06	0.01	–4.39	0.00	–0.09 to –0.03	0.94
Mother’s education (ref: Year 12)
Never attended school	3.91	1.19	3.27	0.00	1.57 to 6.25	49.82
Year 8 or below	1.71	0.21	8.14	0.00	1.30 to 2.12	5.53
Year 9	1.70	0.19	8.97	0.00	1.33 to 2.08	5.50
Year 10	0.71	0.15	4.85	0.00	0.42 to 1.00	2.03
Year 11	0.44	0.14	3.26	0.00	0.18 to 0.71	1.56
Other post-secondary	0.54	0.15	3.67	0.00	0.25 to 0.82	1.71
Certificate III/IV	0.11	0.13	0.86	0.39	–0.14 to 0.36	1.12
Advanced diploma/diploma	–0.68	0.25	–2.74	0.01	–1.17 to –0.20	0.50
Bachelor degree	–0.97	0.19	–5.11	0.00	–1.34 to –0.60	0.38
Graduate diploma/certificate	–0.45	0.40	–1.13	0.26	–1.24 to 0.33	0.64
Postgraduate	–3.46	0.54	–6.36	0.00	–4.52 to –2.39	0.03
Parent born overseas	–0.22	0.15	–1.52	0.13	–0.51 to 0.07	0.80
Intercept (Wave 1, contrast site)	0.38	0.45	0.83	0.41	–0.51 to 1.27

Note: * is an interaction term that tests whether families in CfC are different at Wave 2 (CfC*Wave 2) and Wave 3 (CfC*Wave 3) respectively.

Table F2: Robustness of jobless household results, testing the influence of one contrast site (asic_14)—regression estimates at Wave 3
	Coefficient	Robust standard error	t–value	Significance	95% confidence interval	Odds ratio
CfC	–0.04	0.12	–0.33	0.74	–0.28 to 0.20	0.96
Gender (1=female)	0.05	0.08	0.60	0.55	–0.11 to 0.20	1.05
Child is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin	1.08	0.16	6.83	0.00	0.77 to 1.40	2.96
Mother’s age	–0.06	0.01	–4.39	0.00	–0.09 to –0.03	0.94
Mother’s education (ref: Year 12)
Never attended school	3.91	1.19	3.27	0.00	1.57 to 6.25	49.82
Year 8 or below	1.71	0.21	8.14	0.00	1.30 to 2.12	5.53
Year 9	1.70	0.19	8.97	0.00	1.33 to 2.08	5.50
Year 10	0.71	0.15	4.85	0.00	0.42 to 1.00	2.03
Year 11	0.44	0.14	3.26	0.00	0.18 to 0.71	1.56
Other post-secondary	0.54	0.15	3.67	0.00	0.25 to 0.82	1.71
Certificate III/IV	0.11	0.13	0.86	0.39	–0.14 to 0.36	1.12
Advanced diploma/diploma	–0.68	0.25	–2.74	0.01	–1.17 to –0.20	0.50
Bachelor degree	–0.97	0.19	–5.11	0.00	–1.34 to –0.60	0.38
Graduate diploma/certificate	–0.45	0.40	–1.13	0.26	–1.24 to 0.33	0.64
Postgraduate	–3.46	0.54	–6.36	0.00	–4.52 to –2.39	0.03
Parent born overseas	–0.22	0.15	–1.52	0.13	–0.51 to 0.07	0.80
Intercept (Wave 1, contrast site)	0.38	0.45	0.83	0.41	–0.51 to 1.27

Figure F2: Jobless households by site and wave (adjusted)

Figure F2: Jobless households by site and wave (adjusted)

Note: A predicted probability of 1.00 means that 100 per cent of households are jobless; a predicted probability of 0.00 means that 0 per cent of households are jobless.

Figure F3: Jobless households by site and wave (outlying contrast site excluded)

Figure F3: Jobless households by site and wave (outlying contrast site excluded)

Note: A predicted probability of 1.00 means that 100 per cent of households are jobless; a predicted probability of 0.00 means that 0 per cent of households are jobless.

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