Sara Charlesworth

Part-time Work and Caring Responsibilities in Australia: Towards an Assessment of Job Quality

Abstract Part-time work (for women) is often put forward as a solution to the problems of balancing paid work and caring responsibilities. This assessment is too shallow. It neglects the crucial issue of the quality of the part-time job. Poor quality part-time work may worsen problems of work and family imbalance rather than contribute to their solution. Good quality part-time work is the main path forward. This is a preliminary paper, which focuses on introducing the topic and outlining several dimensions—other than just number of hours—that are important in any assessment of the quality of part-time jobs.

‘Part-time and Part-committed’?: The Challenges of Part-time Work in Policing

In police services, both in Australia and internationally, attention has been focused on increasing the representation of women. The availability of part-time work has been identified as a key mechanism to retain women who have been recruited. To date, however, the take-up of part-time work remains low. It is also concentrated in administrative work and non-operational policing work. In this article, we draw on research in Victoria Police around the experiences of, and attitudes towards, part-time work. The research suggests that there are a number of policy constraints to the take up of part-time work, particularly by police officers. There are also significant cultural barriers to both increasing and integrating part-time work, which influence attitudes to part-time work at all levels of the organization. However, these barriers are intertwined with and reinforced by institutional structures and processes that position part-time work as ‘other’ and a gendered understanding of police work. In increasing access to part-time work, the challenge for police services is to address both institutional and cultural barriers to the integration of part-time and full-time work.

Work‐family and work‐life pressures in Australia: advancing gender equality in “good times”?

Purpose – This paper aims to explore recent changes in Australias work‐family policies and programs and their implications for gender (in)equality.Design/methodology/approach – The authors critically assess a suite of new work/family‐related policies, including the introduction of a government‐funded national paid parental leave scheme, a limited right to request flexible working conditions, and the extension of state and federal anti‐discrimination legal protections for workers with family responsibilities.Findings – The analysis suggests a lack of coherence and integration between various work/family related policies and the need for a wider range of reforms, particularly in relation to domestic work and care. It is found that the gendered use of flexibility rights, like the new right to request, do not necessarily improve gender equality and may work to entrench it in the face of strong gendered workplace and societal norms and practices around work and care. As a consequence women workers and mothers...

Getting gender on the agenda: the tale of two organisations

Purpose – This paper aims to explore emerging issues in the application of the “dual agenda” model of gender equitable organisational change aimed at improved work life outcomes in two large Australian organisations.Design/methodology/approach – The research project used the collaborative interactive action research (CIAR) methodology that underpins the dual agenda change approach. Within both organisations, a multi‐method approach was used, including formal interviews, focus groups and ethnographic‐style observation and interaction, as well as the analysis of a wide range of organisational documentation. The paper focuses on the challenges both for the researchers and the organisations in keeping gender on the agenda, drawing on the identification of work practices and work‐life policies that impede organisational effectiveness and gender equity and the subsequent work culture diagnosis for each organisation.Findings – The way in which the “gender problem” within an organisation is framed is strategicall...

Lean social care and worker identity: The role of outcomes, supervision and mission

Since the 1980s, many social care jobs have shifted from the public to the nonprofit sector, accompanied by funding cuts, government contracts, managerialism and performance management. Qualitative data collected in Australia, New Zealand and Canada show that agency mission and immediate supervisors remain centrally important to workers’ identity and willingness to remain employed in social care. With the exception of one study site (where targets were jointly resisted by managers and staff), outcome measures were seen by workers to detract from the quality of care and erode social justice. This article argues that agency mission and supportive supervision buffer the impact of poor wages and conditions in the sector, while outcome measures undermine workers’ identities as caring people, in effect making the ‘self’ a site of struggle and discontent. Resistance strategies that agencies, workers and unions have used to challenge the hegemony of outcome-oriented funding and management models are explored.

New Australian Working Time Minimum Standards: Reproducing the Same Old Gendered Architecture?

This article focuses on the minimum working time standards in the ‘safety net’ created by the Fair Work Act 2009. We draw on an analysis of on-paper minima in the 10 National Employment Standards and in two Modern Awards covering paid care workers. We argue that the gendered legacy of poorer working time provisions in non-standard jobs held by many Australian women workers has been reproduced in the architecture of the new Fair Work regime. Our case study suggests that the permanent full-time norm of employment continues to permeate working time regulation, despite the fragmentation of the standard employment relationship with the growth in casual and part-time work. Not only does casual status limit the access of many women workers to particular National Employment Standards, but there remain significant and gendered differences in award minimum working time standards, particularly for casual and part-time care workers, in comparison with the conditions and protections provided in one of the key male industry awards. Further, a hierarchy of working time standards for care workers has been reproduced, underpinned by differences in contract status, job classification and work location. This leaves those at the bottom of this hierarchy with little working time or income security.

Fragmented outcomes: International comparisons of gender, managerialism and union strategies in the nonprofit sector

Since the mid-1980s, the nonprofit social services sector has been promoted as an option for cheaper and more flexible delivery of services. In order to comply with government standards and funding requirements, the sector has been subject to ongoing waves of restructuring and the introduction of new private market-like, outcomes-based management models, such as New Public Management. This article explores ways in which nonprofit social services sector workers experience their work as highly fragmented. Drawing on case studies completed as part of a larger project addressing restructuring in the nonprofit social services sector in Scotland, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, we examine three key aspects shaping work in the nonprofit social services sector: 1) workers’ experience of managerialism; 2) gendered strategies drawn on by workers in the agencies studied; and 3) union strategies in the nonprofit social services sector, as well as within individual workplaces. Conclusions focus on contributions to understanding managerialism as a strong but fragmented project in which even weak union presence and the willingness of the predominantly female workforce to sacrifice to provide care for others ensure that some level of social solidarity endures.

Part-time of what? Job quality and part-time employment in the legal profession in Australia:

This article examines the quality of part-time employment for solicitors in private practice in Australia. Although full-time jobs based on long hours are dominant in the legal profession, part-time jobs, primarily taken by women, have attracted attention in recent years. The article seeks to answer fundamental questions about the extent and quality of these jobs, and how well they serve the needs of the increasingly diverse workforce. The article draws on recent surveys and in-depth interviews, as well as Census and other secondary data to describe the features of the part-time workforce and to explore aspects of poor quality such as limited access, inferior job content, stalled career progression and narrow schedules. It suggests that the major barrier to improving the quality of part-time jobs is the dominant model of full-time work in law firms, centred on heavy workloads, high targets of ‘billable hours’ and long working hours.

Integrating part‐time work in policing services: policy, practice, and potential

This paper draws on research examining the constraints on and opportunities for ‘quality’ part‐time work in Victoria Police. While focus has been on increasing the quantity of part‐time work to retain female police officers, the paper identifies the persistence of several cultural and institutional barriers to more integrated part‐time work. It also highlights a number of positive practices in the deployment of both full‐time and part‐time members, such as around rostering, that make for enhanced organisational and employee flexibility. Finally, we reflect on the collaborative research process itself in helping realise the potential for quality, integrated part‐time work.

After the baby: A qualitative study of working-time arrangements following maternity leave

ABSTRACT To date, the issue of part-time work for women returning after the baby has received little attention in the working-time research and debates. In order to address this particular aspect of the work and family conundrum, this article draws on research in two large Australian organisations and explores the various factors within each organisation that limit the ‘practical availability’ of part-time work arrangements on return from maternity leave. The analysis highlights the importance of the broader organisational and gender context as well as the influence of each organisations working-time norms on the construction and definition of part-time hours. Both organisations are male-dominated and any specific interest female employees may have in work-family benefits sits outside the dominant workplace norms of full-time work and a long working-hours culture.