It's About Time - For a New Regulatory Approach to Equality

2000

2018

2012

This study examines Australia's new paid and unpaid parental leave provisions and compares them to recent developments in a number of European countries. Increasingly, gender equity goals have been incorporated in the formulation of the policy approaches within a number of these countries. In recent times the EU has been a powerful driver of incorporating gender equality goals in work and family policy areas. The study addresses the question of whether, and under what conditions, policies such as the introduction of parental leave have the potential to achieve meaningful shifts in the existing gender order within a society towards a more equal dual earner-carer household structure. It suggests that there are several dimensions to an integrated work/family strategy that are likely to deliver progress towards a more equal gender order.

1975

Under WorkChoices, parental leave is included as one of the five Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standards. The 'new' Standard, however, does not include any paid leave component. At a crucial turning point in the history of employment relations regulation in Australia, this paper provides an overview of the legislative and non-legislative position of maternity leave and parental leave. We firstly outline the availability of unpaid and paid maternity and parental leave pre-WorkChoices, and then compare with the WorkChoices legislation. Following this we briefly consider the impact of the Family Provisions Test Case which occurred in the interregnum between the announced changes and the enactment of the amendments. In conclusion, we speculate about the need for a new parental leave paradigm in Australia and prospects for improving maternity and parental leave under the new regime.

Industrial Law Journal, 2000

Gender, Work & Organization, 2008

In this article we explore how the reluctance to introduce a national paid maternity leave scheme in Australia reflects gendered norms and constructions of parenthood and work. We report on the findings of a study of selected media texts that show how the public discourse that surrounded proposals to introduce such a scheme exhibited deep-seated resistance to women who combine motherhood with continued attachment to the paid workforce. Using a multi-modal approach to discourse analysis, we show how gender and maternity are constructed using cultural and historical discursive resources that reinforce a conservative national identity. By focusing on what is both absent and present in the media texts we show how 'actual fathers' are rendered invisible and the space filled by the government as 'symbolic fathers' impregnating a production line of maternal citizens.

In this paper we provide a critical discussion of how the most progressive parental leave policies are doing with respect to three goods which we identify as essential for liberal egalitarian feminists interested in parental leaves: the good of parental care, the good of gender fairness, and the good of individual choice. Then we offer our own model, based on the power of defaults, which promotes the goods of parental care and gender justice by sacrificing as little as possible of the good of individual choice.

Journal of Industrial Relations, 2014

The paper examines Australia's new minimum guarantee of paid parental leave. It does so both in the historical context of the evolution of parental payments including those bargained as employment rights, and by reflecting on the curious structure of the guarantee: a payment ordinarily made through the employer and contingent on a minimum (if modest) level of attachment to the workforce, yet funded by government and otherwise structured like a base-level social security entitlement.

Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 2019

Parental leave policies have considerable potential to contribute to the advancement of social equalities, however this is highly contingent on design features such as breadth of coverage and, for gender equality, support for a shared earner/carer social model. These characteristics are in turn shaped by the prevailing welfare state regime and gender order, with coverage also dependent on levels of labour market fragmentation and insecurity. In this paper we examine a number of these intersecting influences in the Australian case. We show that Australian parental leave policies have relatively broad coverage, but note limitations and gaps that could be exacerbated in a future, more fragmented, labour market. We also underline the extent to which current provisions reflect and consolidate, rather than challenge, a 'maternalist' care regime. In conclusion, we canvass strategies to optimise coverage and support gender equality in the future, recognising the constraints of path dependencies arising from Australia's distinctive policy history and the ensuing tension between a 'welfare' and 'employment' basis for entitlements. Policy adaptations to strengthen connections with employment and move beyond a 'primary carer' focus are recommended as conducive to a more egalitarian future.

This report describes how an Income Contingent Loans scheme similar to the Higher Education Contribution scheme could be used to provide wage replacement Paid Parental Leave (PPL) for Australian parents. This lower cost proposal would provide the same social benefits of current PPL policy and meet the gender equity objectives of the Coalition’s wage replacement scheme.

2004

In December 2002, the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) was contracted to assist the Australian Catholic University (ACU) to assess: the impact of the ACU maternity leave provision on shaping the public debate on parental leave; and the influence (if any) of that provision on subsequent policy initiatives. The project examines how the issue has been covered in the media since its announcement, and how this has been incorporated into the broader policy debate on parental leave and other aspects of family-friendly workplace policies. The project does not address the impact of the provisions on the ACU itself, or on its employees. This report presents the results of that research into the impact on public opinion and policy. Following this brief Introduction, Section 2 presents an overview of the impact of the provision in terms of the number of times the issue was discussed in the Australian media. The bulk of the report is contained in Sections 3 and 4. Section 2 contains a detail...