Lawrie Moloney is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. Ruth Weston is Assistant Director (Research) at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. Lixia Qu is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. Alan Hayes is the Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Many people have provided a great deal of assistance in the preparation of this report.

This work was commissioned and funded by the Australian Government Department of Human Services (DHS). We are very grateful to the enthusiastic support and sound advice we received throughout the entire process by the DHS team with whom we worked, especially Rosie Burn, Jodi Sargent and Robyn Longman. We are particularly grateful to Jessie Dunstan for her meticulous assistance in the final stages, which included checking references, and proofreading and amending drafts.

We are also indebted to staff members in the Institute's library, especially Carole Jean, Anita Emmanouilidis and Gillian Lord, who provided invaluable assistance in locating and deriving some of the key literature on which this report is based. Finally, we wish to thank Lan Wang, the Institute's Publishing Manager, for both editing and polishing this work.

Regardless of these invaluable contributions, we, the authors, remain responsible for any errors or omissions.