Work and family: The challenge for modern Australia

"Work and family: The
challenge for modern Australia"

Speech by Commissioner
Pru Goward, Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner,

Royal Women's Hospital
Tracy and Maund Address

Royal Women's Hospital, 27 August 2002

• Thank you for
  inviting me here this evening.
  
  
  
• It is a great
  privilege to have been given the opportunity to deliver the Royal Women's
  Hospital Memorial Tracy Maund address.
  
  
  
• In 1856, when
  Drs Richard Tracy and John Maund established the Lying in Hospital (today
  the Royal Women's Hospital) they were responding to the need to provide
  Melbourne with good, accessible maternity care.
  
  
  
• Establishing
  the hospital was a courageous decision - they were not men of great
  private means.
  
  
  
• They were however
  men who saw a challenge and responded to it.
  
  
  
• Today we reap
  the benefits.
  
  
  
• In 2002 The Royal
  Women's Hospital is the largest women's hospital in Australia.
  
  
  
• Tonight, I would
  like to follow the lead of these great men.
  
  
  
• I would like to
  identify what is fast emerging as the most increasingly relevant challenge
  for modern Australia - and consider how we can respond to it.
  
  
  
• The challenge
  - achieving a work family balance.
  
  
  
• How we respond
  to this challenge will affect the lives of women, families, and next
  generations.
  
  
  
• The need to address
  it is recognised across society.
  
  
  
• When Valuing
  Parenthood: Options for paid maternity leave was launched, for example,
  it was intended to begin an informed and fair-minded public debate about
  the need or otherwise for a national paid maternity leave scheme for
  Australia.
  
  
  
• To be honest
  the most we hoped for was that the Government might agree to pay for
  some economic modelling on a couple of options.
  
  
  
• Well weren't
  we under-achievers!
  
  
  
• None of us anticipated
  the strength and depth of the public support for the issue.
  
  
  
• But perhaps we
  should have.
  
  
  
• Perhaps we should
  have known that if work wasn't working for women, then it wouldn't be
  working for anyone else much either- their parents, partners, their
  children and babies.
  
  
  
• Perhaps we should
  have believed that the anxieties we hold for the struggle women still
  face in Australia were anxieties shared by others, a lot of others.
  
  
  
• Perhaps we should
  have realised that if we think we can no longer put off facing up to
  some of the profound social challenges emerging in Australia, then the
  rest of the country might be thinking the same way.
  
  
  
• And they are.
  
  
  
• Why?
  
  
  
• Because they have
  to.
  
  
  
• Because every
  year our fertility rate declines.
  
  
  
• It currently sits
  at 1.70.
  
  
  
• In 2000 it was
  1.75.
  
  
  
• In 1990 it was
  1.9.
  
  
  
• A fertility rate
  falling below the necessary replacement rate of 2.1 is the symptom of
  something going wrong.
  
  
  
• But it is only
  a symptom. It is not the disease itself.
  
  
  
• Work and family
  is not a 'womb gazing' debate.
  
  
  
• It is a debate
  about women's working lives.
  
  
  
• It is about women
  making life choices around the fact that today they continue to receive
  less pay, less opportunity, and less financial support in the workplace
  because they bear children.
  
  
  
• Women still only
  earn 84 cents in the male dollar, when comparing average weekly ordinary
  full time earnings.
  
  
  
• This gap occurs
  for a number of reasons as we know - basic workplace discrimination;
  perhaps, women's career expectations; workforce gender segregation which
  is ongoing and high; and, of course, family responsibilities.
  
  
  
• It is the gendered
  nature of family responsibilities that now form the greatest barrier
  to equal pay.
  
  
  
• Pay inequity is
  intertwined with work and family issues.
  
  
  
• Let me explain.
  
  
  
• First, women
  who negotiate with bosses for salaries quite often end up with less
  then their male counterparts doing the same job.
  
  
  
• They arrive at
  the bargaining table feeling that they will have to forfeit a higher
  salary because they know one day they may need greater workplace flexibility
  or they may have to take days off due to commitments to their children.
  
  
  
  
• Men - many of
  whom will become or are fathers don't even consider factoring these
  things when they sit down to 'talk figures'.
  
  
  
• Second, that
  promotion often isn't available to women, nor are the extra hours, nor
  is the senior position available in the interstate office for three
  months because they need to get home to their kids.
  
  
  
• The disparity
  in the earning ratio between women and men grows to 66 cents in the
  dollar when part time and casual workers are added into the equation.
  
  
  
  
• It is not surprising
  then to find that it is women making up 73 per cent of all part time
  employees and 60 per cent of the casual workforce.
  
  
  
• Women in Australia
  are most likely to have children when they are between the ages of 30-34.
  
  
  
  
• This is the age
  when women are most likely to be combining work and family.
  
  
  
• It is no coincidence
  that it is when the earnings of men and women over 30 are compared that
  the earning gap is most obvious.
  
  
  
• Disparate earning
  ratios are only part of the workplace disadvantage that women experience
  due to their child bearing role.
  
  
  
• It still comes
  as something of a shock for many independent and confident young women
  when they discover a whole new world of discrimination or barriers to
  work when they embark upon parenthood.
  
  
  
• During pregnancy,
  there are still many employers who consider that women do not work as
  productively, while pregnant- they either demote or dismiss them, deny
  them training or otherwise allow their careers to stagnate.
  
  
  
• A front office
  job may quickly become a back office job should a boss decide that a
  life-bulging stomach is unsightly.
  
  
  
• At a paid maternity
  leave consultation held with union representatives in Tasmania a union
  representative relayed the experience of a member, who was forced to
  move to a different work area (away from the public eye) when she was
  pregnant as her employer felt that her 'bulge' showed that she led an
  active sexual life!
  
  
  
• This treatment
  does not end after the birth.
  
  
  
• For women who
  want and choose to breast-feed, many workplaces cannot or will not provide
  suitable conditions for the expressing of milk.
  
  
  
• Many women have
  to settle for unchallenging jobs, or to forego promotions in order to
  secure part time work or flexible hours.
  
  
  
• There remains
  a perception that part time work cannot be challenging and that part
  time workers are not sufficiently committed.
  
  
  
• Women often experience
  a lack of sufficient financial support during maternity, no guarantee
  that a job is there when they return from maternity leave, difficulty
  accessing affordable childcare, difficulty finding hours that suit their
  families, or poor access to flexible work conditions which would allow
  them to occasionally take time off for family reasons.
  
  
  
• Women are also
  the ones who end up taking large amounts of unpaid leave, or just time
  out of the workforce, further contributing to the direct economic cost
  they bear for having our children.
  
  
  
• And if you query
  this, if you think that families will always share their income, do
  I need to remind you of the high rate of divorce over the long term?
  and the higher reliance of older women on social welfare compared with
  the reliance of older men?
  
  
  
• And of course
  we can't forget women have a right to participate in public life.
  
  
  
• Some women work
  because they have to financially, some because while they may choose
  not to work while their children are young, decide to do so to keep
  their skills current. Others see paid work as satisfying, as a time
  for themselves away from the home.
  
  
  
• And of course
  there are many of us for whom work is intrinsically satisfying - it
  forms part of our identities.
  
  
  
• Women work for
  a range of reasons. Just as men do. And we have a right to do so.
  
  
  
• However, as we
  know, the world of work as currently constituted, was designed by and
  for men - men with women at home to support them.
  
  
  
• If women are
  to fully participate without discrimination in the workplace we need
  to do at least one of two things - change gender roles or change the
  workplace.
  
  
  
• Our best bet may
  be to change the workplace - to create an environment that welcomes
  women as we are - including our family responsibilities.
  
  
  
• This is called
  substantive equality - delivering equality of outcome for women in work
  -delivering our right to work.
  
  
  
• How do we go about
  doing this?
  
  
  
• There are a number
  of ways - we implement family friendly work practices; we make flexible
  working hours the norm; we make good childcare more accessible and affordable;
  and we replace our current system of paid maternity leave - ad hoc,
  and at the individual employer's discretion - with a national scheme
  of paid maternity leave.
  
  
  
• I would like the
  take a few moments to discuss some of these measures in more detail.

Flexible working
hours

• In its current
  form, part time work and casual work is a double edged sword for women.
  
  
  
  
• Yes, it gives
  women the opportunity to fit around their family responsibilities and
  thus remains the preferred form of work for women with families; however
  it is difficult to find well paid part time or casual work (the bulk
  is in hospitality and retail) and extremely difficult to find it at
  the professional or managerial end of the labour market.
  
  
  
• In addition,
  finding formal child care on a part-time or shift basis is almost impossible.
  
  
  
  
• There is no systemic
  approach to part time work in Australia. It is offered - and at the
  employer's discretion.
  
  
  
• In this respect
  Australia is lagging behind.
  
  
  
• From April 2003
  in the UK employers will have an explicit duty to properly consider
  mother's and father's requests to work part time. This measure will
  be introduced as part of a government commitment to increasing access
  to flexible working practices.
  
  
  
• Four and a half
  years ago, with the Equal Opportunity Commission decision in Hickie
  v Hunt and Hunt it appeared that Australia was moving towards a similar
  legal recognition of the right to part time work.
  
  
  
• This case involved
  a female solicitor at a law firm who had been nominated for advancement
  to contract partner.
  
  
  
• After the nomination,
  the woman advised the firm that she was pregnant it was agreed that
  she would take three months off work after the birth and then work three
  days per week on her return.
  
  
  
• Shortly before
  her scheduled return several of the firm's partners met with the solicitor
  and suggested that she reduce her practice and give up a number of her
  case files.
  
  
  
• She did not agree
  with this proposal and the firm then refused her request for a temporary
  replacement. She returned to work, working three days from the office
  and two days from home.
  
  
  
• In a subsequent
  performance assessment the woman received an unfavourable review. In
  noted "I do not believe you can run a practice and service clients
  three days per week."
  
  
  
• The woman's partnership
  contract was not renewed and she complained that the statement concerning
  part time work was in effect a requirement that she must work full time
  to maintain her position and that such a requirement was indirect discrimination
  on the grounds of sex.
  
  
  
• The firm responded
  to this by saying that full time work was inherent to the position.
  
  
  
  
• The Equal Opportunity
  Commission found that the requirement to work full time would inevitably
  disadvantage women practitioners, especially those aspiring to be partners
  and that the requirement to work full time imposed on the solicitor
  in order to maintain her position was not reasonable in the circumstances.
  
  
  
  
• At the time this
  case was heralded as establishing a right to part time work.
  
  
  
• Recent litigation
  on this issue suggests that this is right is yet to be established,
  and as the following examples illustrate, access to part time work remains
  difficult for women returning to work from maternity leave:

Example 1:

Bogle v Metropolitan
Health Service Board (2000) EOC 93-069

• Following a period
  of adoption leave, a dental clinic nurse sought to return to work on
  a part time job share basis.
  
  
  
• Her employer offered
  her either her old job back on a full time basis or a part time job
  with lesser status and responsibility.
  
  
  
• According to the
  employer, the position of charge nurse, which this woman held, could
  not be shared, had always been performed on a full time basis.
  
  
  
• The woman made
  a complaint before the Equal Opportunity Commission who found that the
  requirement to work full time imposed on employees undertaking supervisory
  positions disproportionately affected women and employees with family
  responsibilities.
  
  
  
• This requirement
  was found to be unreasonable as the employer had failed to consider
  the employee's job share proposal.

Example 2:

Schou Deborah
v State of Victoria [1999] VCAT 631

• A woman was employed
  full time as a sub editor on the Hansard reports at Parliament house.
  She wanted to continue working full time, however work two days of every
  week from home so that she may fulfil her family responsibilities.
  
  
  
• Her employer would
  not agree to this arrangement and she complained before the Victorian
  Civil & Administrative Tribunal. It held that an employee's parental
  or carer responsibilities should be considered in determining whether
  a work from home arrangement is viable.
  
  
  
• In this situation
  it was not reasonable to insist that the employee attend her workplace
  everyday. A modem could be installed at the woman's home, at modest
  cost and without difficulty, enabling her to work from home.
  
  
  
• The decisions
  in these cases suggest that there is a de facto right to part time work
  in Australia.
  
  
  
• The attitudes
  of employers in these cases suggests however that even if this right
  is recognised legally it is not adhered to in reality.
  
  
  
• How do we make
  this leap then - from legal dicta to real life practice?
  
  
  
• We do it through
  an attitudinal change towards work and family issues.
  
  
  
• Across society,
  we recognise and accept that women work and have children.

Paid Maternity
Leave

• A national scheme
  of paid maternity leave is one way of providing the cultural recognition
  of this fact within the workforce and within society.
  
  
  
• It recognises
  the non-work related responsibilities of half of the people in the workforce.
  
  
  
  
• It says, we recognise
  that women, who bear this particular responsibility, are entitled to
  the same workforce respect and recognition as the bloke who uses his
  defence leave entitlement to go into the army for 12 months; those who
  take study leave or long service leave; or the person who accesses their
  entitlement to jury duty leave.
  
  
  
• Paid maternity
  leave is also about income replacement.
  
  
  
• With no universal
  scheme of paid maternity leave in place, the majority of women lose
  their entire income for at least the first few weeks following the birth
  of a child.
  
  
  
• Paid maternity
  leave will go someway to addressing the loss of income, and therefore,
  at least slightly reduce the gender pay gap.
  
  
  
• It will mean that
  women can afford to be out of the workforce, while recovering from childbirth,
  establishing a breastfeeding routine and bonding with a child without
  the stress that they cannot financially afford to be doing this.
  
  
  
• Let me explain.
  
  
  
  
• While the birth
  of a child is often a special time for families for women it is also
  a time characterised by colic, croup, cracked nipples, six feeds a day
  and sheer physical exhaustion.
  
  
  
• Post natal depression
  is common, as is the need for a physical recovery from caesarean section
  births.
  
  
  
• Dragging yourself
  out of bed after your head has just hit the pillow-following feed number
  five- to go to work is 'that's life' for many women with newborn babies.
  
  
  
• Addressing the
  health and welfare issues for mothers and newborns is an issue of importance
  to you here tonight.
  
  
  
• The Royal Women's
  Hospital is dedicated to looking after the health needs of women of
  all ages, all cultures and the new born.
  
  
  
• Providing maternity
  care was the focus of the work of John Maund and Richard Tracy.
  
  
  
• Their concerns
  for the health of new mothers and their newborns would no doubt have
  made them supporters of a national scheme of paid maternity leave -
  should it have been the issue on the agenda in their day.
  
  
  
• This brings me
  to the final point I would like to address tonight.
  
  
  
• Why is work and
  family the issue of today?
  
  
  
• Why are we discussing
  paid maternity leave and flexible work hours?
  
  
  
• Because these
  are realistic responses to the needs of the modern Australian family
  - the two income family.
  
  
  
• Sure, one parent
  might only need to work part time, but work they both do.
  
  
  
• It's not about
  saving up for the overseas family holiday, if indeed it ever was.
  
  
  
• Today the majority
  of women will have to work part or full time for at least part of their
  parenting years.
  
  
  
• Why?
  
  
  
• Because the real
  cost of living is high.
  
  
  
• In particular,
  housing affordability, Australia-wide, has declined by 29% within the
  space of a generation.
  
  
  
• You need two
  incomes to carry the mortgage on the slum of your dreams, forget the
  4 bedroom mansion with the spa bath and optional pool room!
  
  
  
• Into this heady
  pressure pack, you can now add the fact that women still bear children
  and somehow have to cope with all this while juggling a major responsibility
  that hasn't changed for thousands of years and isn't likely to!
  
  
  
• Traditionally,
  we have based our support for families around the male breadwinner model.
  
  
  
  
• A model which
  is no longer relevant.
  
  
  
• The family has
  changed, therefore the sort of support we give to families has got to
  change.
  
  
  
• Paid maternity
  leave acknowledges this.
  
  
  
• As does the introduction
  of flexible work practices, and an acceptance of part time work.
  
  
  
• These are sensible
  and effective way of supporting today's Australian families.
  
  
  
• Let's follow the
  lead of the men we are here tonight to honour. Let's meet our challenges
  with an appropriate, meaningful, sustainable response.
  

Last
updated 29 August 2002