Staff, Academic

Qualifications

Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) -- University of Melbourne, 1968

PhD -- La Trobe University, 1978

Expertise & Consultancies

Sue Richardson was appointed as Director of NILS in 2000. Prior to that she was Associate Professor in the School of Economics at the University of Adelaide. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1994 and was President of that Academy from 2003 - 2006. In 2004, Prof Richardson was appointed as a Commissioner (part-time) of the Essential Services Commission, SA.

Professor Richardson's research interests have been chiefly in the fields of labour economics, income distribution and poverty. Together with Dr Peter Travers, she has written extensively on what is meant by the standard of living, how this is measured and what it looks like in Australia. This work culminated in their book, Living Decently, published by Oxford University Press. She lead work on the book Reshaping the Australian Labour Market published by Cambridge University Press in 1999. Current research includes the impact of labour market changes on children's wellbeing; the settlement experience of new migrants to Australia; changes in labour demand and supply and their implications for vocational education; the ageing of the population and the workforce; skills shortages; and the social determinants of health. She leads the Productivity and Economic Security theme of the ARC/NHMRC Network on Ageing Well, and is a Chief Investigator on the NHMRC-funded Australian Health Inequities Project

In addition to her normal academic duties, Professor Richardson has held a variety of positions outside and within the University. These include membership of policy committees which have advised Ministers in the Governments of South Australia and the Commonwealth, on technological change and on energy policy. She has also been on the Board of Directors of companies involved in high pressure natural gas transmission pipelines, intellectual property and venture capital. She has been a member of the Council of the University of Adelaide and Convener of its Academic Board and on the Rhodes Scholarship selection committee. She has also served as Co-editor of the Economic Record (a major Australian Economics Journal).

Between 1995 and 1997, Professor Richardson was appointed on a half-time basis as Commissioner with the Industry Commission (which is the principal advisor to the Commonwealth Treasurer on strategies for improving the efficiency of the Australian economy, now called the Productivity Commission).

Selected Publications

How Labour Markets Work (ed.), Longman Cheshire, 1981 (with Richard Blandy)

"Discount Rates and the Distribution of Lifetime Earnings ", Journal of Human Resources , Vol. 20, No. 3, Summer 1985 (with Keith Hancock).

"More or Less Equal?   Australian Income Distribution Since 1933", Economic Record , Vol. 62, No. 176, March 1986 (with Ian McLean).

"Earnings, Education and Experience:   Is Australia Different?", Australian Economic Papers, Vol. 28, No. 52, June 1989 (with Bob McNabb).

"Living Decently", Australian Economic Review, 3rd Quarter 1992 (with Peter Travers).

"Resources and Functioning:   A New View of Inequality in Australia", with K. Lovell, P. Travers & L. Wood, in W. Eichorn, ed., Models and Measurement of Welfare & Inequality, Springer Verlag, 1993

Living Decently:   Material Well-being in Australia, with Peter Travers, Oxford University Press, 1993

"Equity", in S Foster (ed), Review of the Social Sciences, Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, 1998

"Who benefits from minimum wages?", Journal of Industrial Relations, December 1998, 40:4, pp 554-579

"Unemployment and Income Distribution" (with Ann Harding), in G Debelle and J Borland (eds), Unemployment and the Australian Labour Market, Reserve Bank of Australia, Sydney, 1998

Reshaping the Labour Market (ed), Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1999 (Including chapters on "Regulation of the labour market", and "Poor workers? (with Ann Harding)).

Low Wage Workers , 2002, New Zealand Treasury.

Who Cares for the Elders? What we can and can't know about exisiting data?, 2003, Commonwealth Dept of Health & Aging

The Care of Older Australians: A Picture of the Residential Aged Care Workforce, 2004, Commonwealth Dept of Health & Aging

Children of the Lucky Country? with F Stanley and M Prior, August 2005, Pan MacMillan Australia, ISBN:1 40503680 X