By the time you’ve finished reading this article, roughly 20 people will have moved from the country into a city somewhere around the world. In any given week, millions of people head into cities. Cities are growing well beyond anything their founders could have imagined. At the same time, the
Read MoreThe recent turmoil over the removal of Confederate statues in the United States invites us to think about the importance of monuments and historical memory worldwide. It also invites us to ask, should statues that represent dark episodes in a country’s history be removed? Or should they be kept as
Read MoreWe all know what it’s like to forget something. A loved one’s birthday. A childhood memory. Even people capable of extraordinary memory feats – say, memorising the order of a deck of cards in less than 20 seconds – will still forget where they left their keys. People, it seems,
Read MoreAny public conversation about on-road cycling in Australia seems to have only one metaphor for the relationship between drivers and cyclists: equal reciprocity. An utterance like “Drivers must respect cyclists’ space on the road” must inevitably be followed by something like “For their part, cyclists must ride responsibly and
Read MoreThe Bachelor attracts widespread criticism for being old-fashioned, anti-feminist, and humiliating to women. The show involves a group of women competing for the attention of “the bachelor” — the single male star. He offers a rose to those who win his affections, enabling them to stay in the competition. Is this courtship
Read MoreSix in ten Australian 14-15 year-olds know what career they would like to have in the future, but the jobs that boys aspire to are quite different to those that girls aspire to. The Institute’s Director, Anne Hollonds said 60 per cent of 14-15 year-olds – who know what job they
Read MoreThe Australian Government has announced the start of a landmark investigation of the comparative costs of providing residential aged care to older Australians with varying needs. The Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt AM, said the Residential Aged Care Resource Utilisation and Classification (RUC) study would help guide long-term reform in
Read MoreMinister for Veterans’ Affairs Dan Tehan yesterday encouraged Australians to pause and reflect on the 72nd anniversary of Victory in the Pacific Day, marking the end of the Second World War. “Victory in the Pacific Day marks Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allies after more than three years of war,” Mr
Read MoreAdult survivors of child sexual abuse have long complained about police disinterest in so-called “historical” sexual abuse complaints: when a report is made years after the alleged offence. The experiences of child and adult complainants in child sexual abuse trials have also been inconsistent. Often, they are alienating and retraumatising. Against
Read MoreThe baby bonus did its job, encouraging people to have more children at a time when fertility rates were low, our research finds. Given Australian men and women desire 1.5 more children than they actually have, it might be time to consider policies like this again. Fertility rates have fallen from
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