Natasha Cortis

Self-employment, work-family time and the gender division of labour

Does being self-employed, as opposed to being an employee, make a difference to how parents with young children can balance work and family demands? Does self-employment facilitate more equal gender divisions of labour? This article uses the Australian Time Use Survey to identify associations between self-employment and mothers’ and fathers’ time in paid work, domestic labour and childcare and when during the day they perform these activities. The time self-employed mothers devote to each activity differs substantially from that of employee mothers, while fathers’ time is relatively constant across employment types. Working from home is highly correlated with self-employment for mothers, implying the opportunity to be home-based is a pull factor in mothers becoming self-employed. Results suggest mothers use self-employment to combine earning and childcare whereas fathers prioritize paid work regardless of employment type. Self-employment is not associated with gender redistribution of paid and unpaid work, although it facilitates some rescheduling.

Recognition at Last: Care Work and the Equal Remuneration Case:

Despite decades of intervention to promote equal pay, the gender wage gap in Australia persists. A key explanation is that equal pay strategies have had limited capacity to address the subtle, historical undervaluation that keep wages low in highly feminized areas of employment, especially where care work is performed. In this article, we examine a recent attempt to address the undervaluation of care work through a test case of the expanded equal remuneration clause in the Fair Work Act 2009. A highly feminized area of employment, the social and community services industry proved a strategic context for the case. We discuss three significant aspects of the case: the recognition given to the undervaluation of care work; the divergent interests of non-government sector employers and business associations; and strong contestation over who should pay, arising from the government’s third-party role as purchaser of social and community services.

Social Work Education as Preparation for Practice: Evidence from a Survey of the New South Wales Community Sector

Abstract Social work faces increasing competition from other postschool qualifications, which offer pathways into social and community services in Australia. This has prompted debate about what kinds of qualifications should be required in the sector, and about the relationship between social work and other educational programs. This article presents new empirical evidence about social work compared with other human service qualifications as preparation for practice. Based on data from a large survey of nongovernment sector workers in New South Wales (n = 661), multivariate analysis indicated that any level of qualification in a human service field improved employee self-ratings of preparedness. However, having a Bachelor level degree or higher in social work had the greatest effect, improving preparedness more than any other individual, job, or organisational characteristic. The findings renew support for social work as the key foundation for practice roles in the nongovernment sector.

Gender, Pay Equity and Human Service Work: A New South Wales Case Study

The 1998 New South Wales Pay Equity Inquiry demonstrates some limitations of dominant theoretical approaches to the undervaluation of work in female-dominated occupations and industries. Campaigns for equal pay could be enriched with a firmer understanding of the complexity of caring and emotional labour in womens paid human service occupations such as nursing, hairdressing and childcare. Such understandings can help redefine skill and worth so as more thoroughly to recognise and reward interpersonal work performed in female-dominated service occupations. Rejecting common moral and economic objections to placing monetary values on these traditionally feminine and ostensibly ‘non-economic’s activities is another ingredient for the historic achievement of gender pay equity.

Working Time in Public, Private, and Nonprofit Organizations: What Influences Prospects for Employee Control?

ABSTRACT Employee control over work-time arrangements promotes work-family reconciliation and buffers against stress. But which human service context provides employees with the best opportunities to control their work schedules? Analysis of Australian survey data shows that after accounting for the low levels of work-time control in human service occupations like teaching and nursing, nonprofit organizations offer superior prospects for work-time control. However, whether this is true is strongly influenced by other occupational, employment and personal characteristics, such that for personal-care workers, work-time control is lowest in nonprofit organizations.

Is job control under threat in the human services? Evidence from frontline practitioners in Australia, 2003–2012

This article examines a component of job quality which is particularly important for human service workers: the level of control they have over their work. Having control over work goals and tasks enables frontline workers to respond appropriately to the needs of the people they serve, so contributes to service quality and client outcomes, as well as employee wellbeing. However, much research has contended that job control is under threat in human service contexts, largely as a result of new public management. We examine these claims and contribute new data showing that levels of job control in the human service workforce have indeed been under pressure in recent years. From 2003 to 2012, Australia’s human service workforce did not experience the increase in job control experienced by other workers. In the education industry, levels of job control fell significantly. We discuss these trends in the context of debates about the impact of new public management on frontline human service work and challenges of securing the future provision of good quality services.

Australia's grant-making charities in 2016: an analysis of structured philanthropy and other grant-makers

This report provides detailed analysis of the characteristics and contributions of Australia’s grant-making charities. It uses the Annual Information Statement (AIS) provided by charities to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) for the 2016 reporting period. The information provides unprecedented insight into the characteristics, structure, activities, purposes and resources of different types of grant-making charities, distinguishing between private ancillary funds (PAFs), public ancillary funds (PuAFs), trusts, and other grant-makers.

Playing catch up? An exploration of supplementary work at home among Australian public servants

Working at home has conventionally been understood as a formal, employer-sanctioned flexibility or ‘telework’ arrangement adopted primarily to promote work–life balance. However, work at home is now most commonly performed outside of normal working hours on an informal, ad hoc basis, to prepare for or catch up on tasks workers usually perform in the workplace. Scholarly assessment of this type of work has been sparse. To fill this gap, we undertook secondary analysis of a large data set, the Australian Public Service Employee Census, to explore the personal and organisational factors associated with middle-level managers regularly taking work home to perform outside of and in addition to their usual working hours. We conceptualise this as ‘supplementary work’. The analysis shows how supplementary work is a flexibility practice associated with high workloads and poor organisational supports for work–life balance, distinguishing it from other forms of home-based work. Whereas previous studies have not found gendered effects, we found women with caring responsibilities had higher odds of performing supplementary work. These findings expand understandings of contemporary flexibility practices and the factors that affect them, and underline the need for more nuanced theories of working at home.

Out of kilter: changing care, migration and employment regimes in Australia

The authors show that care migration is increasingly being promoted to meet predicted labor shortages in aged care and child care in Australia. Under current migration policy settings, it is virtually impossible for low-skilled workers to enter Australia in their own right. This chapter examines current debates about care migration in Australia, drawing on submissions made to public inquiries into aged care and child care in the last five years. It analyzes the sources of support for, and opposition to, care migration and the policy context that frames these debates. This chapter situates Australia within an international context.

Australian charities report 2016

The Australian Charities Report 2014 is the first analysis of its kind, revealing previously unknown facts about the finances and sustainability of Australia’s charity sector. Produced by the Centre for Social Impact in partnership with the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, the report analyses data submitted through the 2014 Annual Information Statement from almost 38 000 charities registered with the ACNC.