Skip to main content

Submissions

Paid Work and Family Responsibilities Submission

Sex Discrimination Unit

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

GPO Box 5218

Sydney NSW 2001

Ballarat, 20 April 2006

Dear authors,

I would like to thank you for providing a comprehensive discussion paper that takes a very inclusive and critical perspective and is extremely well researched. For my PhD project, I am analysing the Australian policy framework and compare it with its German and Swedish equivalents using an approach very similar to yours. My findings throughout the literature research have been largely consistent with those presented in the report but I would like to add on certain aspects of the discussion paper especially in Parts C and D.

The major concerns that I have with regard to your recommendations for changes to the Australian legislative and policy framework as well as workplace and community attitudes is that they fall short of the discussion paper’s potential. In my view, this can be largely attributed to the exclusive focus on the Australian context and the conceptualisation of proposed changes within the limits of the current neo-liberal political ideology. However, a look at certain European societies (especially the Nordic countries) reveals that Australia is lagging far behind the possibilities regarding a redefinition of the interface between paid and unpaid work, i.e. public and private spheres, as well as achievements towards increasing gender equality.

Please find attached an elaboration of my criticisms and recommendations. I hope that they are valuable in the revision process and I am happy to provide further input and clarification of the points made.

Best regards,

Nadine Zacharias

PhD candidate in Management

School of Business

University of Ballarat

Areas of concern and recommendations:

  1. Sex Discrimination Act and its applicability to women and men (p.85-87)

    I agree with your concerns regarding the Sex Discriminations Act. In its current form and interpretation, it reinforces stereotypes and traditional role assumptions. It needs re-writing and re-interpretation in the court system to include fathers more explicitly and to present parenting as a more shared effort between mothers and fathers.

  2. The following argument is problematic. “ ‘… [E]mployers resist their workplaces being used to engineer social attitudes or to experiment with policy that is ahead of community attitudes’. Certainly, employers would take issue with further workplace regulation where current rights are not being fully used.” (p. 87)
    1. It is stated on page 53 of this report that women and men “show strong acceptance of flexible and egalitarian gender roles” and that they do believe that housework and child care should be shared more equally between the sexes. Gender equality is a community attitude it just does not serve Australian employers that exploit traditional gender relations for their own benefit. This can be illustrated by the high casualisation of women and particularly mothers, their concentration in low paid, low skilled and less valued jobs and industries, the gender wage gap, the exploitation of fathers in demanding more performance on the job in exchange for job security (e.g. Broomhill & Sharp, 2004; Campbell, 2002; Campbell, 2004; Pocock & Alexander, 1999)
    2. The current rights are not fully used because of the flaws in that regulation as you pointed out earlier (it does not include men, relies on outdated assumption of traditional gender roles, does not cover indirect discrimination, clashes with entrenched and sacred workplace norms and realities, etc.). To argue that there cannot be any further regulation because current offers are not used ignores that the current regulations are inherently flawed and not comprehensive enough to allow employees to use these options as a matter of ‘free’ choice.

  3. “It is clear that legislative responses to discrimination are more generally accepted where they carefully balance the social and economic imperatives to eliminate discrimination and inequality with the need to allow business to operate without undue restriction.” (page 87)
    1. Here lies the crux of my argument. I am concerned about the motivation and ideological barriers of a neo-liberal government to suggest a comprehensive policy reform that aims to give ‘real’ choices to employees who are (prospective) parents when, in fact, its priorities are to enable unrestricted business practices for employers and the free reign of market forces. In my view, a ‘real’ solution requires significant changes to the ways in which we do business and in the ways in which we support families on a federal government level. This argument is supported by research undertaken in Scandinavia (e.g. Gornick & Meyers, 2003; Haas, Allard & Hwang, 2002; Rostgaard, 2002; Rostgaard, 2002; Sjoeberg, 2004) as I demonstrate later in this piece. Everything else is tinkering with the margins which does not help as is illustrated by the failure to make ‘work-life balance’ policies work successfully (e.g. Charlesworth, 2004; Connell, 2004; Lewis, 2001; Lewis, Rapoport & Gambles, 2003; McDonald, Brown & Bradley, 2005; Pocock, 2005; Rapoport & Bailyn, 1996) . In their current form, family responsibilities and paid work requirements clash fundamentally and are irreconcilable without government intervention. The authors need to clarify what exactly is understood by an ‘undue restriction’ on employers and how much of their ambitious agenda can be achieved without constraining employers and the great powers that they currently hold over their employees’ working conditions.
    2. The Prime Minister appreciates that “there is no single solution for managing demands of work and family” (page 106) yet he aims to make everyone the same under a unified industrial relations system (page 93). This seems like a fundamental contradiction.
    3. As is stated on page 89, the current government is of the opinion that there are mutually beneficial work practices that profit the employee in terms of increased flexibility and control over their working conditions and the employers in terms of adding positively to the bottom line.
      1. However, to date there is no convincing evidence that proves either the business case for work-life balance policies or that such policies effectively work to the employees’ benefit. Research only focuses on some aspects of the problem and in many cases has been unable to tie the implementation of work-life benefits to the bottom line (e.g. Abbott, De Cieri & Iverson, 1997; Bardoel, Moss & Tharenou, 1997; Johnson, 1995; Jones, Clark, Kufeldt & Norrman, 1998; Siegwarth Meyer, Mukerjee & Sestero, 2001) . The benefits to employers that the authors present as “’business case’ arguments” (page 98) have not been proven in independent research. The ‘business case’ approach is even more problematic because it relates mainly to professional/managerial employees (e.g. recruitment and retention argument) but not to low skilled and low paid employees.
      2. If employers are serious about their commitment to improve work-life balance they have to alter work practices, organisational structures and cultures which involves a substantial investment in terms of time, money and senior management commitment (e.g. Blair-Loy & Wharton, 2002; Cutcher-Gershenfeld & Kossek, 1997; Glass & Estes, 1997; Siegwarth Meyer et al., 2001) .
      3. On the other hand, if employees make use of work-life policies they usually face negative career and financial consequences as well as hostility by supervisors and colleagues (e.g. Dulk & Ruijter, 2004; McDonald et al., 2005; Warren & Johnson, 1995; Zacharias, 2002) . Thus, the assumption that there are mutually beneficial policies does not hold. The rhetoric, however, is used to benefit those who hold the power in the current system: the employers.
    4. Another concern with the current bargaining system is presented on page 91 of the document: “The most common family-friendly provision in certified agreements are family/carers’ leave and part time work which were each contained in around one quarter of all certified agreements”. Not only is this number very low (how many employees in need are actually covered by such an agreement?), furthermore it has been shown as early as 1990 that stand-alone policies do not work (Cutcher-Gershenfeld & Kossek, 1997; Galinsky & Stein, 1990; Glass & Estes, 1997) . Employees benefit from work-life initiatives if their company has a comprehensive set of policies in place that are formalised, available to all employees, communicated throughout the organisation and supported by the organisation’s culture and senior management.
    5. Even if work-life policies are integrated in a strategic way there is still doubt that they can ever provide ‘real’ solutions to parents. There is two major concerns: Firstly, Charlesworth (2004) points out that work-life policies ignore underlying gendered structures that shape workplaces and work-life arrangements. Secondly, Kingston (1990) argues that the focus on a rather narrow set of policies obscures the complexities in the ways that organisational practices, structures and cultures shape work-life arrangements and thus constrains the scope of policy debates. Thus, it can be said that work-life balance policies seem to be incapable of delivering real benefits to employees and that the debate needs to be focused on government intervention because business solutions are inherently limited.
    6. To finish off this argument, I would like to come back to Kingston (1990, p. 441) who states that “[a]fter all, the primary concern of employees with family responsibilities is the availability of a job with good security and adequate pay. This is the essential foundation for a sustaining, stable family life. If private businesses fail to deliver on this count, all other concerns about ‘responsiveness’ [of workplaces to work-life concerns] are largely moot”. Looking at the changes to the industrial relations system proposed by the government and summarised in the report on page 93, this essential foundation of job security and adequate pay is no longer a given in the Australian context. I wonder about the success of the proposed reform in the face of an industrial relations framework that fails to deliver basic conditions to employees to even start thinking about a family.

  4. Proposed changes to questions no. 29, 32, 33 and 34:
    1. Do workplace policies, formal and informal, …
    2. Appropriate’ by which standard?! What is defined as an appropriate outcome/effect? By whom?
    3. Does the cumulative effect of this government assistance facilitate choice for women and men and assist them …

  5. Plus add a question:

    What are the implications of the government’s proposed changes to the industrial relations system for employees’ abilities to balance their paid work and other commitments?

  6. The work-life or work-family debate has two aspects: paid employment and everything that happens outside of it.
    1. My perception is that there is a lot of attention given to the fact that most fathers and increasingly mothers are in the paid workforce and on how they can adapt their private lives to fit around that new reality. It is stated that “[u]npaid work [and its gendered division] is the linchpin of the work and family debate” (p. 126). Very little attention is given to the idea that it may be workplace structures or even the very ways in which we conduct business that need to be changed in order to realise a better balance between paid work and the rest of life. This thought gets only passing attention on page 118 under the headline of ‘workplace attitudes’. Even then, it is only mentioned that long hours, inflexible schedules and cultural barriers prevent men to be more active in doing housework or being involved with their families. Is it not fair to say that these same phenomena cause work-life stresses for both parents in the first place and result in the ‘double shift’ for women who feel obliged, due to cultural pressures, to take responsibility for child rearing and housework? Alternatively, women drop out of this traditional lifestyle pattern by not having children whether this is by choice or circumstance (Cannold, 2005) .
    2. When the report talks about work structures and their impacts on the ability to balance life, it often refers only to men (e.g. pp. 118, 125), reinforcing the idea that only men are associated with paid work and that women are aloof of the pressures caused by workplace demands.
    3. The authors of the report fall in the common trap of accepting the current workplace imperatives as an unchangeable, almost ‘natural’ law instead of portraying them as social rules and practices that can be challenged and altered. As a result, individuals are held accountable for choices that they make within constraints which are beyond their control.
    4. I would like to recommend that the report mentions that neither the 40 hour work week with its 9 to 5 and Monday to Friday distribution nor the 24-7 globalised economy are working conditions conducive to parents, especially given the rigid and limited schedules of child care centres, kindergartens, schools, etc. There are real structural issues that prevent parents from being able, as individuals, to achieve a better work-life balance and that also restrain employers in their attempts to help.

  7. Proposed changes questions 38 and 39:
    1. How important are workplace cultures, in conjunction with workplace structures, ….
    2. How can workplace cultures be altered (by influential managers, prominent examples, communication, education, etc.) to promote …

  8. “Governments may be unwilling to take on more responsibility for these matters but, almost by default, remain responsible for ensuring that the system works properly; oversighting if not regulating where appropriate” (p. 126).

    The Prime Minister has paid tribute to his unwillingness to take more responsibility, declaring the workplace a level playing field and announcing the “post-feminist stage of the debate” (John Howard quoted in Hewett, 2002) . However, as the report has demonstrated “[w]ithout equal footing in the labour market and equal sharing of unpaid work, women and men face different choices” (p. 127) as well as different consequences of their choices. Whether the leading political figures like it or not, if the goal of the Australian government is to encourage people to have more children and to raise them in a more gender egalitarian way, to spread the joys and sorrows of raising children and engaging in paid employment more evenly between partners, it needs to give legislated rights to parents and in doing so curtail the rights of employers. I am back to my major concern: the government with its neo-liberal ideology faces a fundamental conflict of interest in this debate.
  9. In the light of this, I could interpret the ‘Options for change’ that are provided in the report as ‘diplomatic’. However, if change towards ‘real’ choices for parents is the goal then I can call them feeble at best. The suggestions provided fall terribly short of the report’s potential and do not do any justice to the good analysis of the presented material. They are tame and vague propositions that do not stretch the limits of the current approach in any way and ignore many of the valid points raised earlier. I cannot offer a solution to the problems in the unique Australian context. But I would like to point out some options that are currently practiced in European countries that may illustrate the possibilities that are open to us.

  10. In my view, the four goals that are proposed on page 129 are all valid and desirable. However, the steps that have been suggested in the report do not seem to be specific and ambitious enough to achieve these goals.
    1. Legislative and social policy change: There is a variety of policy options that are practiced in European countries that should be considered for the Australian context. I would like to recommend Gornick and Meyers’ (2003) book “Families that work: policies for reconciling parenthood and employment” that provides multiple policy recommendations for the US American context that is similar to the Australian one. The authors draw on cross-country analysis of family policies in ten European countries and Canada and all of the following information is taken from their compilation.
      1. Leave policies:
        1. Paid maternity leave for 14 to 18 weeks at full wage replacement levels is provided by Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. These expenses are shared between health insurance providers, employers and/or government.
        2. “Daddy days” (between 2 days and 4 weeks) are available to fathers straight after birth or adoption in all of the Nordic countries, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, usually at full wage replacement levels. Those days are granted to fathers as a use-or-lose approach and cannot be taken by the mother.
        3. Paid parental leave is available in most European countries, however, the length and conditions of the leave vary greatly. The approach of the Nordic countries is usually perceived as “best practice” and has been found to produce the best results in terms of gender equality. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden provide extended periods (10 to 134 weeks) of paid time off work (usually at 80% of wage levels) until the child reaches a certain age (maximum is 9 years). In Sweden and Norway, these benefits are also available when the parents participate in employment at reduced hours.
        4. The Nordic countries apply use-or-lose approaches as an incentive for fathers to take parental leave, i.e. if fathers do not take a certain part (two to four weeks) of the leave the couple loses it because it is not transferable to the mother.
        5. These policy approaches serve a multitude of purposes: they give new parents peace of mind regarding their financial situation and job security while settling into their new roles, they introduce fathers to the joys and duties of caring for infants and later on encourage fathers to take full responsibility for their children which may lead to a higher long-term involvement of fathers into care and housework. At the least it increases the appreciation of the work involved in raising children.
      2. Right to part-time work: the European countries have implemented the EU Directive on Part-Time work which grants a legislative right to permanent part-time work to parents. They can reduce their working hours to a certain degree (20 to 60 percent) for a number of years (maximum is 8 years after birth of child) but retain the benefits of full-time employment (relative to the number of hours worked) and their permanent employment status. However, most countries have placed restrictions on the access to that right including ‘justifiable business reasons’ in Germany and the Netherlands.
      3. Public child care: in most European countries the government provides high-quality childcare for two thirds up to virtually all children between three and five years. Even for younger children (one to two years) the rate is fairly high (up to 74 percent in Denmark). Many countries have also adapted the opening hours of preschool programs to align the children’s schedules with those of their parents, e.g. Sweden: 6.30 am to 6.00 pm all year.
    2. Cultural change in the workplace and attitudinal change: research in Scandinavia shows that legislative changes on a federal level support attitudinal change in the workplace (Haas et al., 2002) as well as on a personal level (Rostgaard, 2002; Sjoeberg, 2004) towards increased gender egalitarianism in the roles of men and women as well as increased acceptance of working parents. It has also been shown that, when there is no back-up by federal legislation, attitudinal change in the workplace and in families is slow and work-life balance policies remain under-utilised (McDonald, 2000) .

As this brief overview shows, there are ample possibilities available to a government that is seriously concerned with its citizens’ abilities to better manage the balance between employment and care work especially when they have young children. The seriousness on the part of the current government will have to be evaluated on the basis of the funds that are attributed to this long-term project as well as the level of regulation that is imposed on employers. Both have to be significant to prove a true commitment of the Howard government to this course. Otherwise, the reforms will not be more than a lip-service to pressing needs of everyday Australians that have been clearly outlined in the important discussion paper.

List of references:

Abbott, J., De Cieri, H. & Iverson, R. D. (1997). Costing turnover: implications of work/family conflict at management level. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 36(3), 25-43.

Bardoel, E. A., Moss, S. A. & Tharenou, P. (1997). Organizational predictors of work-family practices. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 36(3), 31-49.

Blair-Loy, M. & Wharton, A. S. (2002). Employees' use of work-family policies and the workplace social context. Social Forces 80(3), 813-845.

Broomhill, R. & Sharp, R. (2004). The changing male breadwinner model in Australia: a new gender order? Labour & Industry 15(2), 1-23.

Campbell, I. (2002). Extended working hours in Australia. Labour & Industry 13(1), 73-90.

Campbell, I. (2004). Casual work and casualisation: how does Australia compare? Labour & Industry 15(2), 85-111.

Cannold, L. (2005). What, no baby? : why women are losing the freedom to mother, and how they can get it back. Freemantle: Curtin University Books.

Charlesworth, S. (2004). The work/family debate: working for or against gender equality in the workplace? Women and work forum series, Center for Public Policy, Melbourne.

Connell, R. W. (2004). A really good husband: Observations on work/life balance, gender justice and social change. Work-Life Balance across the life course, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Cutcher-Gershenfeld, J. & Kossek, E. E. (1997). Managing concurrent change initiatives: integrating quality and work/family strategies. Organizational dynamics 25(3), 21-42.

Dulk, L. d. & Ruijter, J. d. (2004). Attitudes of managers towards utilisation of work/life policies in the financial sector in the Netherlands: the role of organisational culture. Work-Life Balance across the Life Course, Edinburgh, UK.

Galinsky, E. & Stein, P. J. (1990). The impact of human resource policies on employees. Journal of Family Issues 11(4), 368-388.

Glass, J. L. & Estes, S. B. (1997). The family responsive workplace. Annual Review of Sociology 23(1), 289-313.

Gornick, J. C. & Meyers, M. K. (2003). Families that work: policies for reconciling parenthood and employment. New York: The Russell Sage Foundation.

Haas, L., Allard, K. & Hwang, P. (2002). The impact of organizational culture on men's use of parental leave in Sweden. Community, Work & Family 5(3), 319-342.

Hewett, J. (2002). The mothers' club. Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney.

Johnson, A. A. (1995). The business case for work-family programs. Journal of Accountancy 180(2), 53-58.

Jones, H., Clark, R., Kufeldt, K. & Norrman, M. (1998). Looking After Children : assessing outcomes in child care. The experience of implementation. Children & Society 12(3), 212-222.

Kingston, P. W. (1990). Illusions and ignorance about the family-responsive workplace. Journal of Family Issues 11(4), 438-454.

Lewis, S. (2001). Restructuring workplace cultures: the ultimate work-family challenge? Women in Management Review 16(1), 21-29.

Lewis, S., Rapoport, R. & Gambles, R. (2003). Reflections on the integration of paid work and the rest of life. Journal of Managerial Psychology 18(8), 824-841.

McDonald, P. (2000). Gender equity, social institutions and the future of fertility. Journal of Population Research 17(1), 1-16.

McDonald, P., Brown, K. & Bradley, L. (2005). Explanations for the provision-utilisation gap in work-life policy. Women in Management Review 20(1), 37-55.

Pocock, B. (2005). Work/Care regimes: institutions, culture and behaviour and the Australian case. Gender, Work and Organization 12(1), 32-49.

Pocock, B. & Alexander, M. (1999). The price of feminised jobs: new evidence on the gender pay gap in Australia. Labour & Industry 10(2).

Rapoport, R. & Bailyn, L. (1996). Relinking life and work: toward a better future. New York: Ford Foundation.

Rostgaard, T. (2002). Caring for children and older people in Europe: a comparison of European policies and practice. Policy Studies 23(1), 51-68.

Rostgaard, T. (2002). Setting time aside for the father: father's leave in Scandinavia. Community, Work & Family 5(3), 353-364.

Siegwarth Meyer, C., Mukerjee, S. & Sestero, A. (2001). Work-family benefits: Which ones maximize profits? Journal of Managerial Issues 13(1), 28-44.

Sjoeberg, O. (2004). The role of family policy institutions in explaining gender-role attitudes: a comparative multilevel analysis of thirteen industrialized countries. Journal of European Social Policy 14(2), 107-123.

Warren, J. A. & Johnson, P. J. (1995). The impact of workplace support on work-family role strain. Family Relations 44(April), 163-169.

Zacharias, N. (2002). Balancing work and life: an investigation into the costs and benefits of implementing work-life programs and policies in five Australian companies. Ballarat: University of Ballarat.