Gillian Whitehouse

‘Family Friendly’ Policies: Distribution and Implementation in Australian Workplaces

‘Family-friendly’ policies have recently gained a high profile in Australia, featuring increasingly in political rhetoric, company policies, industrial provisions and human resource management discourse. While initiatives to enhance the combination of work and family responsibilities may make relatively minor contributions to equal employment opportunity efforts, they do bring into consideration some of the broader social impediments to gender equity in paid employment. Some assessment of their accessibility and impact is therefore warranted. In this paper we examine the distribution of work and family provisions in the Australian labour market, and provide an assessment of their implementation in selected organisations. Our findings indicate that access to work and family provisions is uneven across the Australian labour market, particularly in the private sector; and suggest that even where provision is exemplary, the impact is at best moderate.

FATHERS’ USE OF LEAVE IN AUSTRALIA

This paper examines Australian fathers’ use of leave at the time of the birth of a child, drawing on data from The Parental Leave in Australia Survey, conducted in 2005, and a subsequent organizational case study. Our analysis shows that although most Australian fathers take some leave for parental purposes, use of formally designated paternity or parental leave is limited. This is unsurprising given the Australian policy framework, which lacks legislative provision for paid paternity or parental leave, and does not require any of the shared unpaid parental-leave entitlement to be reserved for fathers. Use of leave is shown to be influenced primarily by fathers’ employment characteristics, with those working in small organizations or non-permanent positions least likely to utilize paternity or other forms of leave. Overall, the analysis suggests that improvements in the policy framework would increase Australian fathers’ propensity to take parental leave, but highlights barriers to usage associated with labour market divisions and career pressures that will not be solved solely by the adoption of more progressive leave policies.

From Casual to Permanent Part-Time? Non-Standard Employment in Retail and Hospitality

Abstract As the proportion of the Australian labour force accounted for by full-time, permanent employees continues to decline, the conditions of non-standard work have become increasingly important aspects of industrial negotiation and regulation. In this article we investigate the potential to enhance the conditions of non-standard work through the conversion of part-time positions from ‘casual’ to ‘permanent’ status. While this strategy formally addresses the insecurity of casual employment, our research suggests some limits to the capacity to impact on the broader process of ‘casualisation’ of employment conditions. In the sections of retail and hospitality industries which we investigate, not only has negotiation of a transition from casual to permanent part-time employment proved difficult, there is little indication that permanent part-time status confers significant improvements. Moreover, in the current industrial relations environment, the potential to address more fundamental aspects of the con...

Unequal Pay: a Comparative Study of Australia, Canada, Sweden and the U.K

Abstract In most OECD countries in the 1980s the earnings of women in the paid workforce remain significantly below those of men. While a range of factors are commonly utilized to explain this earnings gap, a review of available statistics highlights marked cross-national variations which suggest limits to the explanatory value of many orthodox approaches. This paper argues that cross national differences in the relative earnings of women can be understood more fully when institutional factors such as the organization of labour and wage fixing arrangements are taken into account.

Industrial Agreements And Work/Family Provisions: Trends And Prospects Under ‘Enterprise Bargaining’

Abstract The trend towards enterprise and individual level bargaining in Australia over the 1990s has been accompanied by a number of claims about associated ‘work/family’ benefits. However, analysis of agreements shows a low incidence of measures designed specifically for this purpose, and the steady increase evident since the mid-1990s appears to have stalled in recent years. Moreover, provisions in agreements are unevenly distributed, being most prevalent in the public sector and in unionised agreements, and comparatively rare in male dominated agreements and those recording high wage increases. Limitations of delivery of work/family measures through agreements include their vulnerability in the bargaining environment and a tendency to be countered by provisions that limit hours flexibility and control. Thus although agreements may be more reliable providers of work/family benefits than alternatives such as company policies, their ideal role would be as an adjunct to legislative and welfare provisions that ensure basic provisions are non-negotiable.

Women, Information Technology and Waves of Optimism: Australian Evidence on Mixed-Skill Jobs

Optimism about the increased engagement of women in information technology employment has been informed, in part, by essentialist ideas about the suitability for women of emerging jobs combining technical with interpersonal, artistic or other ‘non-technical’ skills. Drawing on evidence from Australia, we highlight limitations to this brand of optimism, questioning the potential for women in mixed-skill jobs in computing and multimedia organisations.

Women in part-time work: A comparative study of Australia and the United Kingdom

Abstract While cross-national differences in the prevalence of part-time work have long been noted, less is known about differences between countries in the conditions of part-time jobs and the extent to which these vary between long and short hours part-time workers. This article compares selected indicators of the conditions of employment (hourly earnings, training, autonomy and job security) for part-time female employees in Australia and the United Kingdom (UK), utilising data from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS95) and the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98). Although differences are small in some cases and there are some complexities in interpretation, the analysis generally shows poorer conditions for women working shorter hours, with the relative disadvantage of short hours groups most evident in the UK.

Contingent Work and Gender in Australia: Evidence from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey

The decreasing prevalence of the standard model of employment embodied by the ‘typical male full-time employee on a permanent contract’ can be seen both as risking the erosion of hard won labour rights and as offering the potential for a more flexible, less ‘male’ model. This paper addresses some of the ways in which this tension is played out, drawing on data from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations (AWIRS95) Employee Survey to examine the implications for women workers of recent trends in contingent employment in Australia. Our analysis suggests that the growth in contingent employment in Australia has had little positive impact on womens experience of work. We conclude that if the disadvantage faced by women in irregular employment is to be countered, greater regulation of such employment is required. However, key features of the Workplace

From Family Wage to Parental Leave: The Changing Relationship between Arbitration and the Family

From the establishment of a ‘family wage’ for men in the early 1900s through to ongoing test cases over parental leave in the early 2000s, the arbitration system has played a central role in shaping the policy framework affecting families and the intersection of market and domestic labour. The institutionalisation of a needs-based family wage for men under ‘new protectionism’ in early twentieth century Australia placed the arbitration system at the centre of numerous policy debates and reinforced pre-existing notions of the male breadwinner family. Abandonment of the family wage and the protectionist environment, along with changing social values and labour force patterns, have recast the relationship between arbitration and the family over the course of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the wage setting system continues to sustain a contemporary variant of the male breadwinner model and is playing a pivotal role in shaping parental employment rights into the twenty-first century.

Prosecuting Pay Equity: Evolving Strategies in Britain and Australia

Some thirty years after the introduction of pay equity provisions in Australia and Britain, continued encroachments on the gender pay gap seem inordinately difficult to deliver. This article provides some reflection on the prosecution of pay equity cases in the two countries over this period, and seeks to identify lessons that can be drawn by contrasting the different approaches that have evolved. We are concerned in particular with the impact of decentralizing trends, and the potential to develop strategies that can operate effectively in these circumstances. We show that while Britain began with relatively narrow provisions, these have gradually been extended through case law. However, job evaluation processes have proved tortuous and time-consuming, and the main successes have been in the more regulated sectors of the economy, particularly the public sector. In contrast, while Australia has enjoyed significant advantages associated with its more centralized industrial relations framework, this has not been without costs, and Australia has little of the case experience acquired in Britain to rely on as the benefits of centralization are eroded.