ABSTRACT
Whilst the study on the impact of shrinkage is well documented in North America and Europe, the effects of population-driven shrinkage on rural and regional communities in Australia is comparatively under-researched. This is despite existing literature on the volatility of population change in regional and rural Australia. Therefore, there is cause for establishing a typology of shrinkage in the Australian context, unpacking the different and complex economic, social and environmental causes and consequences, and therefore impacts, and establishing a framework for ongoing research. In this paper, we set out the rationale for this typology, indicating how population drivers are not only extensive, but further complicated by the as-yet-unknown impacts of COVID-19 and teleworking. Regarding policy solutions, we suggest that while mindsets are increasingly changing from a need to reverse population trends to, instead, embracing opportunities and alternative futures for many regional and rural Australian towns, we need to first establish a typology of population shrinkage that is reflective of the Australian context to ensure policy responses are locally appropriate. Practitioner pointers - Mindsets around planning policies on the impacts of population-driven shrinkage are beginning to shift towards understanding the specific socio-economic circumstances of the localised area and adopting appropriate policy instruments accordingly. - To support this nascent shift, establishing a typology of shrinkage that is reflective of the Australian context is key. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the experiences of individuals the world over-without precedent. Its impact has been especially harsh for parents. This chapter considers the impacts of COVID-19 through a family systems lens, which highlights the importance of recognizing that a parent is part of a “family unit” and so their experiences of the pandemic are felt directly, from the world around them, and through indirect pathways via the other members of their family. This chapter will explore the stressors grounded in the pandemic that uniquely impact parents and the ways that parents seek to adapt and cope with these stressors in a landscape where many of their pre-COVID coping strategies and supports are rendered inaccessible or untenable. This chapter also explores the various psychosocial outcomes that may eventuate as parents attempt to balance these imposing stressors with their coping resources with varying levels of success including parental burnout, family violence, and posttraumatic growth. Critical during this ongoing pandemic is that negative outcomes are not an inevitability and that growth for individuals, and the family unit, is entirely possible. However, parents must be equipped with strategies to minimize the stressors impacting their family, afforded the capacity to develop new coping mechanisms, have access to new support pathways, embrace psychological flexibility, and to experience perceived control in theirs, and their families, lives. Each family will face this pandemic period differently and it is therefore parents who must navigate the pathway forward on behalf of their family’s unique experiences. © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.