Abstract
The year 2012 saw a number of initiatives and debates around measures that directly and indirectly affect women’s working conditions. This article first considers the extent of women’s workforce participation, an issue that has informed both policy debates and legislative changes over the last year. It then briefly assesses the potential of the Fair Work Act Review and the ongoing Modern Awards Review to improve women’s working conditions, before turning to action on a number of fronts. Pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment have remained a constant in Australian anti-discrimination jurisdictions for many years. However, in 2012, there was also strong enforcement action by the Fair Work Ombudsman in cases of pregnancy discrimination, a new sexual harassment prevalence survey and the second phase of the Treatment of Women in Defence Review. Apart from the Social and Community Sector equal pay case, finalised in February 2012. Action ‘outside’ formal equal pay provisions also saw potential gains for the predominantly female and low-paid workforces in aged care and childcare.
Keywords
Introduction
By any account, 2012 has been a fascinating year for policy and legislative developments around women and work. Calls to encourage women’s increased participation in employment and a rush of legislation towards the end of the year were punctuated by Prime Minister Gillard’s ‘misogyny speech’ in October (Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), 2012a). The media and public reaction to the latter highlighted political differences in understandings of gender (in)equality and, more generally, foregrounded Australian political gender culture as an issue in its own right. The contestation over which political party appeals more to women voters has remained a media touchstone, with political polling closely tracking how the Prime Minister and the opposition leader are faring in this respect. While the key issue for the media is the extent to which the main political parties and their policies could be said to be ‘women-friendly’ rather than ‘gender equality-friendly’, we have seen a welcome shift from assumptions in earlier policy debates that confined the issue of gender equality to that of ‘work and family’. For example, in the debate surrounding the passage of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (WGE Act), both government and opposition MPs insisted that gender equality is a legitimate goal, while differing over the mechanisms to advance this objective. At the same time, however, the gender equality implications of calls for greater labour market flexibility and of the responses to these calls remain largely invisible.
The review of policy and legislative action around women and work in 2012 outlined in this article is viewed through a gender equality lens. One useful definition of gender equality is set out by the International Labour Organization (ILO): In the context of decent work, gender equality embraces equality of opportunity and treatment, equality of remuneration and access to safe and healthy working environments, equality in association and collective bargaining, equality in obtaining meaningful career development, maternity protection, and a balance between work and home life that is fair to both men and women. (ILO, 2007: 92)
This review sets the scene by considering one of the dominant policy issues in 2012 – that of increasing women’s labour force participation. The extent to which the operation of the industrial relations framework currently supports more gender equality-friendly regulation is also briefly canvassed. The review then looks at action around the persistent gender (in)equality issues of pay equity, sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination, before turning to the operation of the Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme and the important enactment of the WGE Act at the year’s end.
Women’s participation in paid work
In 2012, the goal of increasing female workforce participation was a focus in broader economic policy debates and in legislative measures. It was nominated by the Grattan Institute in June 2012 as one of the three key priorities to increase rates of economic growth in Australia (Daley et al., 2012). Arguing that female labour force participation in Australia is low in comparison with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, the Grattan Institute asserted that if Australia were to raise female participation to the levels in Canada, Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would increase by around AU$25b (Daley et al., 2012: 38). The main barrier to this higher female workforce participation is identified as the effective marginal tax rate regime, with the cost of childcare after tax and welfare benefits acting as a powerful disincentive to many mothers. Thus, the main policy mechanisms advocated are reducing high effective tax rates and the net cost of childcare so that the second-income earner in a family (overwhelmingly mothers) can take home more income (Daley et al., 2012: 42).
Increased female participation has also been used as a policy rationale for legislative measures that impact directly on women. One such measure announced in the May 2012 Budget saw sole parents who had been receiving Parenting Payment (PP) prior to 1 July 2006 (until their youngest child turned 16 years old) lose their entitlement. Despite significant lobbying from welfare groups, from 1 January 2013, this group of sole parents – estimated to number around 100,000 individuals (overwhelmingly women) – will be moved on to Newstart where their youngest child is eight years or older (Department of Human Services (DHS), 2012). Increasing the workforce participation of sole parents was presented as the main policy driver of these changes. However, since 2007, most of the affected recipients have had to comply with the same activity requirements (to seek a job of at least 15 hours a week and register with employment services) as parents with children over five years of age who are on Newstart (Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), 2012a).
In both the Grattan Institute report and the Social Security Amendment (Fair Incentives to Work) Act 2012, the focus is on the goal of increasing the quantum of female participation. However, any attention to the quality of this participation is much less evident. Despite evidence of the difficulties facing sole parents in securing enough hours and family-friendly conditions in work (ACOSS, 2012b) and the findings of the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ (ACTU) Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work (see Baird et al., 2012), there has been little policy debate about the importance of decent work as a basis for women’s increased participation.
Nevertheless, female labour force participation has continued its incremental upward trend, and by September 2012 the female labour force participation rate was 58.8% for women compared to 71.7% for men (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2012a). Women now make up 46% of all employees, 71% of part-time employees and 35% of all full-time employees. They also make up 55% of casual employees, with 28% of all female employees being employed on a casual basis (ABS, 2011). The underemployment rate, that is, the proportion of the labour force who work part time, who want to work more hours and are available to do so, also remains much higher for women (9.5%) than for men (5.5%) (ABS, 2012b). Female underemployment is particularly high in accommodation and food services (18.1%) and in retail (16.0%). It is also high in the feminised occupations of sales work (17.7%) and community and personal service work (16.6%).
Labour force participation rate (%), 20–74 years, and for parents by age of youngest dependent child under 15 years, 2006/2007 to 2010/2011
Source: ABS (2012c).
Today, well over half (55%) of mothers with children under school age are now in the labour force, as are 79% of mothers whose youngest child is aged 6–14 years. Indeed, the labour force participation of this latter group of mothers is similar to that for men generally. Another striking feature is the gendered polarisation in labour force participation reflected in the data on parents with dependent children. While mothers with children aged under six years have the lowest participation rate of all groups, fathers in this category have the highest participation rate.
Mothers’ increased participation remains overwhelmingly in part-time work. In 2010/2011, 66.3% of employed mothers with a child under six years old worked on a part-time basis. This was the case for 54.7% of employed mothers with children aged 6–15 years and for only 43.2% of all employed women aged 20–74 years (ABS, 2012c). However, fathers’ participation in part-time work remains very low, highlighting the challenge for policy measures in encouraging a more gender-equal sharing of work and care in parenting.
Interestingly, given the emphasis on the increased participation of mothers, underemployment is a major issue for mothers of dependent children. In 2011/2012, the underemployment rate for women with a child under six years was 8.8%, and 11.2% for women whose youngest child was aged 6–14 years. Both these rates are far higher than for comparable groups of fathers (3.2% and 3.5%, respectively) (ABS, 2012c). These data highlight the importance of quality part-time jobs for mothers, particularly those that provide enough hours as well as the predictability and the security of hours to manage both paid and unpaid work.
Women, work and the Fair Work Act
The main focus in Australian policy debates around women and work has been on specific policy and legislative provisions that support women to manage both paid work and unpaid care responsibilities, such as the right to request flexible work arrangements (RTR), one of the 10 National Employment Standards (NES). However, mainstream labour protections, including those in the NES and in individual modern awards, which together form the safety net in the Fair Work Act 2009 (FW Act), are crucial for women, both as an underpinning for decent work and gender equality as well as a basis for employee-oriented flexibility where required (Heron and Charlesworth, 2012). While unions and advocacy groups have lobbied for a broader and more effective RTR, little attention has been paid to the role of a set of NES, covering all workers, and minimum award entitlements that might provide the scaffolding of regular and predictable hours from which workers can ask for adjustments to meet shorter- and longer-term caring requirements.
In May 2012, the ACTU Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work recommended a more inclusive and expanded set of NES, which would include casual workers (ACTU, 2012a), who are currently excluded from the NES on annual leave, paid carers/personal leave, compassionate leave and community service leave. Also recommended was an expanded and enforceable RTR that would apply to all workers and additional NES, including a right to refuse overtime and a right to consultation about work to be performed and changes to that work. The Inquiry also recommended that casual work be limited to work that is genuinely irregular and intermittent and that after a certain period of time, casual jobs be ‘deemed’ to be ongoing with the relevant rights and benefits that adhere to that status. While these recommendations were broadly endorsed by the ACTU Congress, to date most focus in the ACTU’s pre-election campaign has been on a more effective RTR, as discussed later.
The FW Act Review, which reported in June 2012, considered a number of specific aspects of the operation of the NES, including the RTR and aligning the service requirements of the PPL scheme with the NES on unpaid parental leave (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), 2012). While the Inquiry panel concluded that most of the NES appear to be operating as intended (DEEWR, 2012: 104), it did not consider the limited coverage of casual workers by the NES.
In the current Modern Award Review, employer applications in many feminised modern awards have focused on making working-time arrangements more ‘flexible’. For example, in its application to vary the General Retail Industry Award 2010, the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) wants employers to be able to amend part-time hours where peaks and troughs in trade occur, and for part-time employees to have the ‘opportunity to compete for additional hours, and therefore additional income’ through removing the requirement for written agreement to any variation in hours (ARA, 2012: 12). In an industry where underemployment is a feature, such a variation, if granted, would provide employers with casual-like flexibility, while paying staff at ordinary time rates. Unions, on the other hand, have pushed for some improvements in working-time arrangements in awards, such as through casual conversion clauses, making work on public holidays voluntary and setting limits around what constitute ‘ordinary’ working hours.
Right to request
The FW Act Review rejected calls for a grievance mechanism for the current RTR but recommended that the RTR could be expanded to include a wider range of caring and other circumstances, and to require that the employee and the employer hold a meeting to discuss the request, unless the employer has agreed to the request (DEEWR, 2012: 94). An amendment to the RTR was introduced by the Greens in the Fair Work Amendment (Better Work/Life Balance) Bill 2012. It proposed to make the existing right available to all employees and provide an appeal mechanism with a tougher obligation placed on employers where an employee seeks the flexible work arrangements for caring responsibilities (see Heron and Charlesworth, 2012: 220). The Bill was not supported by a House of Representatives Inquiry, which reported in October 2012. The Greens then unsuccessfully moved a similar amendment to the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2012 in November.
However, the federal government recognises the importance of extending the RTR to those caring for older Australians and people with a serious long-term illness or disability (Australian Government, 2011). There is also growing support for a grievance mechanism in the RTR limited to parents with children under school age – essentially similar to the award condition won in the 2005 Family Provisions Test Case and lost under WorkChoices. In December 2012, the ACTU Executive resolved to seek the extension of the RTR to workers who care for children, elderly parents or incapacitated partners with the right to appeal an employer’s unreasonable refusal of a request and to seek arbitration if necessary (Workplace Express, 2012a).
One cause for concern about the current operation of the RTR is the lack of awareness about its existence. In the 2012 Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI) survey, only 30% of respondents were aware of the RTR (and only a quarter of mothers and a third of fathers of children under school age to whom the right applies) (Skinner et al., 2012). AWALI 2012 also indicated a low and gendered take-up of the RTR. Only 21% of respondents indicated that they had requested flexibility, with an approval rate of 62%. Men were less likely to make a request (17% compared to 24% for women) and more likely to be refused than women (17% compared to 10%). Men’s poorer access to, and much lower take-up of, carer-friendly flexibility has direct implications for gender equality.
Pay equity
Pay equity is a key gender equality indicator. Measuring the gender wage gap in terms of full-time ordinary time earnings hides more than it reveals (Todd and Preston, 2012). However, it remains the benchmark most used in Australian policy debates, despite almost half of female employees working on a part-time basis. In Australia, the full-time ordinary time gender pay gap was 17.5% in May 2012, considerably larger than the 14.9% full-time pay gap of August 2004 (ABS, 2012d).
The equal pay case for most of those covered by the Social Community Home Care and Disability Services Award 2010 (the SACS case) and its outcomes have been well documented (Baird et al., 2012; Cortis and Meagher, 2012). The federal government has allocated AU$2.8b to supplement the higher wages for those affected, and by the end of 2012, most state governments had agreed to provide additional funding. However, the adequacy of these funding commitments remains unclear over the phase-in period of eight years prescribed by Fair Work Australia (FWA) and there are concerns that there is a significant and unquantified gap in funding to cover the higher wages (ACOSS, 2012c). There are also issues with the sustainability of wage increases won through pay equity cases in Australia. A recent study suggests that steps will need to be taken to ensure that the wage gains in the FWA decision are not eroded over time and that they are integrated in and supported by developments in relevant modern awards (Connolly et al., 2012: 128).
The resource-intensive nature of the SACS case, its specific features in attempting a comparison between similar work performed by government and community sector employees rather than the gendered evaluation of the work performed per se, and the fact that no equal remuneration principles were handed down by FWA, also leave the conceptual and evidentiary basis for demonstrating gender-based undervaluation unresolved (Smith, 2012).
In 2012, there were some pay equity ‘wins’ outside the FW Act’s equal remuneration provisions, which highlight the importance of alternative mechanisms in addressing the gender pay gap in specific industry sectors. As part of its aged care reform package, the federal government announced a Workforce Compact to provide ‘additional funding to aged care providers who take steps to improve the terms and conditions of their workers’ (Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA), 2012). The government has committed AU$1.2b to implement the Compact over four years from July 2013 to improve the capacity of the aged care sector to attract and retain staff. Measures include higher wages, improved career structures, enhanced training and education opportunities, improved career development and workforce planning, and better work practices (DoHA, 2012). The potential of the Compact to address not only wages, but also improved working conditions for low-paid aged care workers, is significant, going well beyond what is possible under the FW Act equal remuneration provisions or what has been secured to date in the award modernisation and review processes.
United Voice has also been successful in securing a sectoral childcare enterprise bargaining agreement that covers one-third of Victorian not-for-profit childcare, including around 90 Victorian childcare centres and over 1700 childcare educators. The agreement provides childcare educators with an 8% wage increase backdated to August 2012 through to July 2013. In addition, the agreement provides an updated classification structure and five days’ bereavement leave (Workplace Express, 2012b).
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment in the workplace has remained a persistent ground of complaint in all Australian anti-discrimination jurisdictions over many years, and the short- and long-term scarring effects of sexual harassment are raised consistently by gender equality advocates and agencies. The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) launched the results of its third sexual harassment prevalence survey in October 2012 (AHRC, 2012a). This 2012 survey found that 21% of Australians (25% of women and 16% of men) had experienced workplace sexual harassment over the last five years. However, awareness of sexual harassment remains limited. Almost one in five respondents indicated that they had not been sexually harassed when read the legal definition of sexual harassment, but reported experiencing behaviours likely to constitute unlawful sexual harassment (AHRC, 2012a: 18). Despite dominant media framings of sexual harassment as involving harassment of a particular individual by an employer or manager/supervisor (McDonald and Charlesworth, 2013), the AHRC survey indicated that more than half of the harassers identified by survey respondents were co-workers (AHRC, 2012a: 35).
Phase 2 of the Review into the Treatment of Women in the Australian Defence Force was completed in August 2012 (AHRC, 2012b). The Review is just one of five separate inquiries into the Australian Defence Force (ADF), all initiated by the Minister for Defence after the infamous ‘skype incident’ at the Australian Defence Force Academy (Baird et al., 2012: 333). The 2012 Review focused on sexual harassment and sexual abuse, finding that sexual harassment was experienced by one in four women and one in 10 men in the ADF (AHRC, 2012b: 259). Under-reporting of sexual harassment and sexual abuse is significant, with only 21% of women and 9% of men who had experienced sexual harassment in the last five years making a formal complaint of any sort (AHRC, 2012b: 260). The main reasons that ADF members did not report harassment were because ‘they feared that they’d be victimised, that their career would be jeopardised, that they’d not be believed or they would be subjected to a sometimes unresponsive chain of command investigation’ (ABC, 2012b).
This significant review of sexual harassment within the ADF places the issue of sexual harassment, its prevention and response strategies firmly within the context of the ADF’s gender culture. This culture is highlighted by findings that there has only been a 1% increase in the recruitment of women to the ADF over the past decade, that fewer than 5% of senior officers are women and that ‘pockets of poor leadership’ have allowed it to exist (ABC, 2012b). Unfortunately such an extensive and resource-intensive review of other large employers is unlikely. However, the ADF Review underscores the importance of framing sexual harassment not just as an issue of an aberrant individual behaving badly, but as systemic sex discrimination (McDonald and Charlesworth, 2013).
Pregnancy discrimination
Pregnancy discrimination is proscribed in state, territory and federal anti-discrimination (AD) laws and in the FW Act, both under the NES and adverse action provisions. For those eligible, the unpaid parental leave NES provides a return-to-work guarantee, and a right to transfer to a safe job in appropriate cases or to take paid ‘no safe job leave’. However, little is known about the extent to which these provisions are complied with. Pregnancy discrimination remains a significant ground of discrimination in formal complaints in AD jurisdictions. Formal complaints, though, only present the tip of the iceberg and the prevalence of pregnancy discrimination in Australian workplaces remains unquantified, despite the recommendations of a 1998/1999 inquiry that better data be gathered on its incidence (Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC), 1999).
There are, however, some recent indications of the possible extent of the problem. Of birth mothers of at least one child under two years of age living with them in November 2011 and who had been employed while they were pregnant, around 61,100 (17%) reported experiencing some level of discrimination directly associated with pregnancy (ABS, 2012e). The most common forms of discrimination reported included missing out on promotion and training and development opportunities and receiving inappropriate or negative comments from managers/supervisors. The ABS data also suggest that many women lose attachment to their job while they are pregnant. Of those who had been in a job when they were pregnant, 29% permanently left the job they had while they pregnant. While the most common reason given by 49% of this group was to care for their child, 13,500 women (13%) indicated that the main reason they had left work was that they had unsatisfactory conditions of employment, they had been retrenched or dismissed, or that they felt obliged to leave (ABS, 2012e). The loss of a job has a direct flow on to eligibility for PPL if the mother leaves before she has met the service criteria. The ACTU Executive’s recent call for a federal government inquiry into discrimination against pregnant employees and those seeking to return from parental leave (Workplace Express, 2012b) is therefore very timely.
While there are limits to individual redress under AD laws, not least as a woman who is pregnant or has recently had a child is unlikely to pursue her rights in a formal complaint, over the last two years the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) has actively targeted pregnancy discrimination. In 2010, the FWO ran a large-scale awareness campaign and, since then, has vigorously pursued a number of complaints through to well-publicised ‘enforceable undertakings’ or prosecutions. While based on individual complaints, such action sends a strong deterrence message to other employers. In 2011/2012, the FWO secured two successful prosecutions of pregnancy discrimination, one of which led to over AU$25,000 of fines and compensation imposed on the employer (FWO, 2012: 45).
Gender equality-friendly regulation?
The challenges in achieving gender equality outcomes are reflected in both the operation of the PPL scheme and the introduction of the WGE Act.
The Paid Parental Leave scheme
The adequacy of the current PPL scheme will be on the policy agenda in the lead-up to the 2013 federal election. Two weeks’ Dad and Partner pay, also paid at the national minimum wage, will be implemented from 1 January 2013 on a ‘use it or lose it basis’ to encourage men to take a more active role in caring for children (McCrystal and Orchiston, this issue). Despite rumblings from Coalition members and from business employer groups, opposition leader Tony Abbott recently reaffirmed his 2010 commitment to a 26-week PPL scheme at replacement wages up to a AU$150,000 per annum, to be funded in part by a 1.5% levy on large enterprises. Mr Abbott linked his scheme to productivity by arguing that ‘if more women were in the workforce the economy would be more productive’ (Workplace Express, 2012c). The opposition’s scheme also includes two of the 26 weeks of PPL as dedicated paternity leave to be paid at the father’s replacement wage up to AU$150,000 per annum, based on the rationale that ‘caring for a newborn is a role best shared between mothers and fathers’ (Coalition, 2010).
By the end of 2012, the current PPL scheme will have been in place for two years. The Phase 1 evaluation, released in mid-2012, indicates that even before the introduction of PPL there was an increase in the proportion of mothers who had returned to work by the time their baby was one year old (Martin et al., 2012). The greatest shift, however, was in the proportion of mothers who had returned by the time their baby was nine months old, up from 40% in 2003/2004 to 49% in 2010 (Martin et al., 2012: 44). This reflects the shift in the workforce participation of mothers with young children highlighted earlier. In considering the gender equality implications of the PPL, the Phase 1 report notes that PPL may potentially lead to greater sharing of household tasks and childcare between men and women (Martin et al., 2012: 72). However, a significant shift in the gendered division of labour in Australian households is needed for this outcome to be achieved. The evaluation found that in 2010, before the introduction of PPL, women who had not yet returned to work did around 80% of total housework and childcare tasks compared to around 70% for women who were working (Martin et al., 2012: 77). If the opposition wins the 2013 election and its PPL scheme is implemented, it will be of interest to see what effect replacement earnings might have on shifting this unequal sharing of work and care.
Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012
The main features of the WGE Act are set out in McCrystal and Orchiston’s article in this issue, while possible tensions in the policy underpinnings and in the implementation of the new Act are briefly canvassed here.
The purpose of the WGE Act is twofold: to support and help drive improved gender equality outcomes in Australian workplaces; and to improve workforce participation and workforce flexibility (Collins, 2012), with both policy aims reflected in the Act’s objects. To meet the aim of improving gender equality outcomes, the WGE Act’s provisions explicitly extend coverage to men, particularly in respect of caring responsibilities, and put in place a number of gender equality indicators (GEIs), against which relevant employers will have to report. It is worth noting, however, that there is currently no GEI on preventing and better responding to sexual harassment where it occurs. This is surprising, given that the GEIs were developed to address ‘the most pressing contemporary gender equality challenges’ (Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), 2012: 2) and the 2009 Review of the former Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 (EOWW Act) identified sexual harassment as a key barrier to achieving gender equality for women and men (KPMG, 2010).
Both encouraging the take-up by men of workplace policies to enable them to take on greater unpaid caring responsibilities, and supporting employers to improve gender equality outcomes, will rely on an effective monitoring and compliance regime. Of some concern is the very long phase-in period for the new Act, which reflects, in some part at least, the considerable lobbying by employer groups to allow employers to prepare for the new reporting arrangements (see Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), 2012). Minimum standards to be reached in relation to each GEI will not apply until the 2014/2015 reporting period, and it is only from the 2016/2017 reporting period that an employer can be found to have failed to comply on the basis of failure to improve against one of the specified minimum standards (WGEA, 2012). One of the crucial issues for the effectiveness of the Act in advancing gender equality within workplaces will be the level at which these standards will be set. Only time will tell if the establishment of the GEI minimum standards represents a lowest common denominator approach, with which all but the most recalcitrant employer can comply, or if it will provide the impetus for meaningful improvements towards gender equality in the workplace over time.
In terms of monitoring, the WGE Act brings in new notification and access requirements, providing an opportunity for employees and employee organisations to comment on employer reports to the WGEA, and the WGEA will be able to conduct workplace ‘spot checks’ (McCrystal and Orchiston, this issue). However, the compliance regime remains substantially similar to that of the EOWW Act, characterised by Marie Coleman of the National Foundation of Australian Women as akin to a ‘rather wet lettuce slap’ (Thornton, 2012: 5).
Conclusion
The focus in this article has been on policy debate and action on key women and work issues in 2012. Whether current policy settings and infrastructure, such as the PPL scheme, and mainstream labour regulation can enable all workers to access both decent work and gender equality is still uncertain. However, there is some evidence of growing commitment to action around the gender pay gap at the sectoral level and to both better preventing and addressing pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment where it occurs.
Two key themes emerge from this review. First, there is an unresolved tension between the widely shared policy goal of increasing women’s workforce participation and the apparent blindness to the poor quality of many of the jobs in which women are located. Another related tension is present in some of the objects of the FW Act, which aim to provide workplace relations laws that are flexible for businesses and to assist employees to balance their work and family responsibilities – also present in the WGE Act’s objects, which aim to improve gender equality outcomes and workforce flexibility. Given the non-inclusive NES and poorer minima in many feminised modern awards, it is crucial that the goal of gender equality in the WGE Act not be subordinated to that of flexibility in the implementation and monitoring of the GEIs.
A second theme is that the goal of gender equality is now part of mainstream Australian policy debates and legislative action around women and work. In particular, the sharing of work and care between men and women is not only one of the policy goals of the new WGE Act, but also present as a policy rationale in the opposition’s paternity leave policy. In addition, while Australia has lagged behind many other countries in not having a national gender equality policy, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Select Council on Women’s Issues has recently committed to the ‘ongoing development of a national framework for considering gender equality, with a focus on reporting and analysis of equality of outcomes between women and men, including across the COAG Council System’ (COAG, 2012). So what will this new attention mean in terms of outcomes for women? A key benchmark for progress to gender equality will be the extent to which policies actually enable men and women to make genuine choices about their workforce participation and to share work and care.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Fiona Macdonald and the two reviewers for helpful feedback on an earlier draft.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.