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Mental Health and Work: Australia

image of Mental Health and Work: Australia

Tackling mental ill-health of the working-age population is a key issue for labour market and social policies in OECD countries. OECD governments increasingly recognise that policy has a major role to play in keeping people with mental ill-health in employment or bringing those outside of the labour market back to it, and in preventing mental illness. This report on Australia is the ninth and last in a series of reports looking at how the broader education, health, social and labour market policy challenges identified in Sick on the Job? Myths and Realities about Mental Health and Work (OECD, 2012) are being tackled in a number of OECD countries. It concludes that policy thinking in Australia shows well-advanced awareness both of the costs of mental illness for society as a whole and of the health benefits of employment. However, challenges remain in: making employment issues a concern of the health care services; helping young people succees in their future working lives; making the workplace a safe, supportive psychosocial environment; and better designing and targeting employment services for jobseekers with mental ill-health.

English

Improving the labour market participation of people with mental health problems in Australia

This chapter looks at the role Australia’s benefit system plays in ensuring a secure income in periods of inactivity for people with mental ill-health and helping them return to the labour market. The chapter devotes particular attention to identifying mental health problems among jobseekers and the employment support provisions that are available. The chapter ends with a discussion of the recent reforms in the disability benefit system designed to halt the rise in numbers of claimants, and the impact they have on those with a mental disorder in particular.

English

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