A natural experiment in social security as public health measure: Experiences of international students as temporary migrant workers during two Covid-19 lockdowns.

What is the impact of social security on public health? And what mechanisms does it operate through? To answer these questions, we take advantage of the unique circumstances of temporary migrant workers two Covid-19 lockdowns in Australia - one in which they were provided with social security, and one in which they were not. We undertook 47 qualitative interviews with South Asian international students who had lost their jobs in two lockdowns in 2020-2021. In Australia, international students represent the largest group of a growing temporary migration program, with many working in low-skilled occupations, in conditions below legal minimum standards. We compare our findings to two models of social security: the self-insurance model and state-insurance model. In first lockdown, without social security, participants struggled to comply with public health orders because of the need to work for income, lack of housing suitable for isolation, and lack of medical leave. Participants tended to avoid testing, and to work while potentially contagious. Participants reported high levels of anxiety, depression and emotional distress caused by job loss and exclusion from an implicit social contract with the rest of Australian society. In contrast, during the second lockdown, where temporary migrants were provided social security payments, participants reported avoiding risky work, undertook Covid-19 testing many times, and self-isolated successfully. There was little evidence of emotional distress. Participants felt like a valued part of Australian society. These results suggest a self-insurance model of social security does not protect the physical and psychological health of vulnerable populations and can exacerbate the spread of communicable diseases. In contrast, state-insurance and social welfare payments to marginalised communities, particularly unemployment benefits and medical leave, are crucial public health policy levers for both protecting vulnerable populations and tackling outbreaks of communicable diseases such as Covid-19.

Motives of corporate political donations: industry regulation, subjective judgement and the origins of pragmatic and ideological corporations.

What motivates corporate political action? Are corporations motivated by their own narrow economic self-interest; are they committed to pursuing larger class interests; or are corporations instruments for status groups to pursue their own agendas? Sociologists have been divided over this question for much of the last century. This paper introduces a novel case - that of Australia - and an extensive dataset of over 1,500 corporations and 7,500 directors. The paper attempts to understand the motives of corporate political action by examining patterns of corporate political donations. Using statistical modelling, supported by qualitative evidence, the paper argues that, in the Australian case, corporate political action is largely motivated by the narrow economic self-interest of individual corporations. Firms' interests are, consistent with regulatory environment theory, defined by the nature of government regulation in their industry: those in highly regulated industries (such as banking) and those dependent on government support (such as defence) tend to adopt a strategy of hedging their political support, and make bipartisan donations (to both major parties). In contrast, firms facing hostile regulation (such as timber or mining), and those without strong dependence on state support (such as small companies) tend to adopt a strategy of conservative partisanship, and make conservative-only donations. This paper argues that regulatory environment theory needs to be modified to incorporate greater emphasis on the subjective political judgements of corporations facing hostile regulation: a corporation's adoption of conservative partisanship or hedging is not just a product of the objective regulation they face, but also whether corporate leaders judge such regulation as politically inevitable or something that can be resisted. Such a judgement is highly subjective, introducing a dynamic and unpredictable dimension to corporate political action.

Threat of Deportation as Proximal Social Determinant of Mental Health Amongst Migrant Workers.

While migration health studies traditionally focused on socioeconomic determinants of health, an emerging body of literature is exploring migration status as a proximate cause of health outcomes. Study 1 is a path analysis of the predictors of mental health amongst 582 documented migrant workers in Singapore, and shows that threat of deportation is one of the most important proximate social determinants of predicted mental illness, and a mediator of the impact of workplace conflict on mental health. Study 2 is a qualitative study of the narratives of 149 migrant workers who were in workplace conflict with their employers, and demonstrates that workers believed threats were used as a negotiating strategy during workplace conflicts. Findings suggest that migration status places workers who come into workplace conflict with their employers at heightened risk of mental illness because migration status can be used as a tool by employers in workplace negotiations.