This article introduces the first of two international Themed Collections on gender and work, published as, Part A across Volumes 35(4) and 36(2), and as Part B in Volume 36(3) of The Economic and Labour Relations Review. In introducing the 11 Part A articles, we identify three main themes: contexts, impacts, and effects on gender status. Contexts include climate crisis, uncertain gender impacts of artificial intelligence (AI), and ongoing skill under-recognition in feminised ‘ancillary’ occupations. Impacts include increasing care load and violence in traditionally feminised teaching work, LGBTQ+ workers’ intertwined experiences of stigmatisation and job insecurity, and immigrant experience of unregulated care work in private households. Impacts on well-being, safety, and security include restricted access to nutrition, rest, creativity, life cycle, and community participation, and diminished status, agency, voice, and recognition of productivity contribution. An alternative productivity calculus is provided in articles documenting the benefits of Australia’s universal statutory 10 days’ family and domestic violence leave entitlement, a proposed Indian green jobs guarantee programme that could transition millions of women into the formal labour market, and an Australian calculation of the unrecognised GDP contribution of breastmilk. A Sub-Saharan African article shows that legally mandated maternity protections are inaccessible to women in informal labour markets. In the context of the United Nations’ key normative and programme role, and its stocktakes of equality and empowerment milestones, we foreshadow questions of official structure and grassroots agency to be addressed in the Part B exploration in (Volume 36(3)) of informal economy work, community agency, and intersectional voice.

We are pleased to introduce a themed collection of articles on Indigeneity, labour relations, and work. There has been a lack of Indigenous voices in academic literature on labour and workplace relations. This themed collection of ELRR amplifies Indigenous voices, knowledges, and perspectives, in labour relations and work. Indigenous researchers from across the world were encouraged to contribute to this important collection. A broad range of topics were proposed for this themed collection, which included; Indigenous justice, human rights and labour, Indigenous participation in labour markets, Indigenous labour history, Indigenous economic and employment risks, Indigenous employment equity, labour relations and public policy, Indigenous labour and unions, colonial power and labour relations, economic benefits of Indigenous labour, Indigenous employment policy and practice, discrimination, and Indigenous labour. Whilst this list was not exhaustive, the call produced a plethora of articles which will be explored below.

Globally, gender equality is the next frontier for social transformation, and women’s economic empowerment is promoted as the pathway to achieve this goal, particularly in countries of the Global South. Women’s economic empowerment is broadly defined as women’s capacity to contribute to, and benefit from, economic activities on terms that recognise the value of their contributions. Advocates for women’s economic empowerment state that it has the potential to be a safeguard against poverty and precarity by enhancing women’s wellbeing. Using a critical-feminist lens, we explore the benefits and risks of the global trend towards women’s economic empowerment. After providing an overview of the evolution of the concept of empowerment, we review the benefits of women’s economic empowerment: economic growth, improved rates of tertiary education and market participation for women, and growth of women’s autonomy. We then examine the risks of the global focus on women’s economic empowerment, which we distil into three key areas: (a) women seen as a country’s ‘natural resource’, used as instruments for economic prosperity and reproduction without considering their wellbeing; (b) a focus on women’s market participation without adequately factoring in current labour market realities; and (c) pushing the women’s economic empowerment agenda forward without fully considering the scope of unpaid reproductive work undertaken by women. We conclude with an analysis of how UN Women (2024) is shifting the agenda by providing a holistic framework for thinking about women’s economic empowerment. We suggest that there is room for cautious optimism if this framework is widely adopted.

Groote Eylandt, one of Australia’s largest islands, is situated north of Darwin in the Northern Territory. The Groote Eylandt Mining Company (GEMCO) is the island’s most prominent employer, having begun open-cut manganese mining in 1964. GEMCO’s long-term presence has led to a seemingly intractable conundrum: economically crucial for First Peoples yet accompanied by chronic socioeconomic and cultural problems. Huge disparities have emerged between the wealthy mining town of Alyangula (with over 90 per cent of its population non-First Peoples and with a predominantly fly-in-fly-out workforce) and the Angurugu and Umbakumba townships (over 90 per cent First Peoples populations). Adopting a theoretical framework of organisational legitimacy, this paper evaluates how enterprise bargaining might contribute to achieving Groote Eylandt’s First Peoples employment and broader community objectives (including health, housing, and environmental restoration). At present, GEMCO’s ‘Employer of Choice’ Indigenous employment strategy comprises three main goals: (1) establishing and maintaining a qualified mentor network; (2) implementing culturally appropriate recruitment and induction processes; and (3) maintaining training programmes that provide the necessary skills for specific jobs. Yet, despite an expansion of mining operations and associated services, First Peoples employment opportunities and participation in the townships have stagnated, while underemployment has become endemic. The paper summarises GEMCO’s Employer of Choice promises and then evaluates these promises against employment and community outcomes. It goes on to explore the possibilities of enterprise bargaining at GEMCO, illustrating how future enterprise agreements might enable the achievement of First Peoples intersecting employment and community goals.

The social organisation of productive and reproductive labour leaves women disproportionately vulnerable to climatic changes and extreme weather events. In the Indian context, this could further reduce women’s labour force participation rates from levels that are already relatively low. Employment opportunities for women in the clean energy sector have been noted to create transformative changes in their lives only with policies such as government intervention to provide accessible public services. Towards this end, I propose a gendered and green job guarantee programme directed towards education, health, public transport (or universal basic services), climate mitigation, and climate adaptation activities.

The intersections between gendered livelihoods and the climate crisis, as well as the gendered and environmental implications of the existing rural employment guarantee in India, are reviewed. Gender-disaggregated employment creation through the proposed job guarantee programme and the budgetary implications are estimated, along with suggestions for potential sources of financing. The programme is estimated to result in the creation of 36 million guaranteed jobs, which accounts for 6% of the workforce as of 2023. Of these jobs, women’s employment opportunities constitute 11.6 million. The number of guaranteed jobs created for women accounts for 4% of the rural female workforce and 11.6% of the urban female workforce. Thus, a gendered and green job guarantee programme in India could be an effective form of government intervention to address the interlinked issues of women’s work and climate action in India.

There has been growing global interest in wellbeing over recent decades, yet what constitutes wellbeing depends on cultural and philosophical traditions, as well as worldview and knowledge systems. Our article offers an Indigenous Māori view on hauora – relational wellbeing – which emanates from the spiritual essence and ethic of hau, and traverses ecological, social, and economic spheres. We use the case study of Māori community support workers (CSWs), who, in our study, found that their hauora was affected by discrimination, racism, and a lack of cultural awareness and support from employers. Our participants, centred mostly within corporate community support providers, found that Western models of care and support did not allow for the expression of tikanga Māori, which limited their options for providing culturally appropriate care. Also prevalent was the lack of recognition by employers and funders of the importance of culture and culturally appropriate care. The implications of acknowledging hauora within Aotearoa New Zealand’s wellbeing frameworks are then examined, showing that Māori notions of wellbeing have the potential to deliver better outcomes not only for Māori but for all New Zealanders. In this article, we provide some recommendations and reflections on how organisations can prioritise and embed the cultural wellbeing of Māori CSWs, their whānau and their clients in the workplace.

Labour mobility has garnered considerable attention within the realm of international relations, prompting economic powers such as New Zealand to seek answers for workforce shortages. Industries dependent on physical labour, often entailing exposure to hazardous substances, face pronounced challenges in attracting workers. In this article, we will focus on three crucial elements of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996: ensuring the protection of the Person Conducting Business Undertaking (PCBU), safeguarding Indigenous iTaukei workers, and preserving the environment under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme. Employing the 3D veivosaki as a culturally sensitive data collection method, the research strategically gained access to iTaukei workers in the South Island of New Zealand (Central Otago and Oamaru, North Otago) where a recent influx of RSE workers has settled. A total of one hundred iTaukei individuals voluntarily participated in the survey – fifty from each location. The research finds that most of the workers do not understand their rights on their access to protective protection equipment. This report presents a detailed exposition of their responses to the survey.

Over the past half-century, there have been significant advances towards workplace gender equality. However, Australia’s working women continue to earn less than men. A key reason is that occupational segregation has maintained very high levels of feminisation in frontline care and other occupations, including in many ‘ancillary’ or supportive roles, which employ large numbers of women and where skills may not be readily recognised and valued. This article explores the way one set of highly segregated ancillary occupations, receptionists, are vulnerable to gender-based undervaluation and argues that this group warrants further attention in strategies to promote workplace gender equality. First, the article outlines the legislative changes, which have recast regulatory attention to low pay and undervaluation in highly feminised occupations and industries, then draws on Australian Bureau of Statistics data to show the presence of several ancillary occupations among Australia’s most feminised. The article then narrows to examine health care reception and reviews the small body of literature that explores the complex, invisible skills this work involves. The example of health care reception underlines the need for gender equality strategies that challenge constructions of women’s jobs as peripheral and subordinate to male-dominated roles, and which recognise and make visible the skills and contributions that women make in a fuller range of feminised occupations.

Despite societal shifts in attitudes towards gender and sexuality, LGBTQ+ individuals continue to experience multiple forms of labour-market disadvantage – including greater unemployment, lower job satisfaction, and slower career progression. However, existing scholarship has paid little attention to the comparative employment conditions of LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ individuals. Leveraging unique data from a large, Australian, employer-employee dataset (2024 AWEI Employee Survey), we fill this knowledge gap by examining the relationships between LGBTQ+ status, non-standard employment (NSE), and workplace well-being. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, we provide novel empirical evidence of the ‘double whammy’ faced by LGBTQ+ employees in relation to NSE. On the one hand, LGBTQ+ employees are more likely to be in certain forms of NSE than non-LGBTQ+ employees; on the other, their workplace well-being is more negatively impacted by these employment arrangements. These findings bear important lessons for policy and practice, indicating that closing the gap between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ workers requires careful consideration of their employment arrangements and the circumstances that surround them.

Indigenous employment has attracted an increasing focus in recent decades from policy-makers, in the context of the gap between national rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous employment. Non-Indigenous businesses are implementing a series of workplace and recruitment policies to enhance their rates of Indigenous employment, yet there is limited research demonstrating the impact of these policies. This paper uses primary survey data from a representative sample of Australian-based non-Indigenous-owned businesses to detail how Indigenous-focused workplace and recruitment practices are associated with Indigenous employment and retention. Descriptive analysis reveals that businesses with a workforce with 3.8% or more Indigenous employees (3.8% being the most recent Indigenous population proportion estimate) are more likely to maintain a series of Indigenous-specific workplace and recruitment practices, including celebrating NAIDOC, having a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), and cultural competency training, compared to businesses with fewer than 3.8% Indigenous employees. Businesses with higher Indigenous employee retention rates similarly demonstrate a higher likelihood to maintain these policies; however, the clearest delineation for businesses with 3.8% or more Indigenous employment and high Indigenous staff retention, is the presence of Indigenous management within these businesses. Revealingly, probit regression models demonstrate that Indigenous manager/s in a business are associated with a 50–60% higher probability of maintaining an Indigenous employment rate of 3.8% or above and an 11–16% lower probability of having poor Indigenous staff retention. Therefore, this paper reveals the importance of having Indigenous people in positions of organisational influence within non-Indigenous organisations, more so than implementing isolated workplace strategies.

This manuscript presents findings from a 2023 qualitative Indigenist research project examining disability service providers in Southeast Queensland that tailor services for Indigenous peoples with disabilities. Data were collected through yarning interviews with 14 organisations, including both Indigenous-managed and non-Indigenous-managed entities. The findings highlight distinct differences in approaches to cultural safety, with Indigenous-managed organisations demonstrating an Embedded Cultural Base (CB) model, wherein cultural safety is deeply integrated into service provision, decision-making, and organisational structures. These organisations reported high Indigenous staff representation and strong engagement with Indigenous peoples with disabilities, alongside proactive inclusivity extending to other diversity groups, including LGBTQIA+ communities and refugees. In contrast, non-Indigenous-managed organisations primarily employed Ad Hoc (AH) cultural safety approaches, incorporating cultural initiatives such as reconciliation action plans (RAPs) and cultural competency training, yet lacking the foundational integration seen in CB organisations. The research highlights the potential of Indigenous-led management strategies in fostering holistic, culturally safe, and flexible disability services. Aligning with First Nations scholarship on the custodial ethic and the model of cultural inclusion, this study highlights how Indigenous cultural values serve as both a protective and empowering factor for people with disabilities. The findings suggest that embedding Indigenous management principles within the disability sector could enhance cultural safety, service accessibility, and community-driven care models, prompting further consideration of their role in shaping inclusive and effective management practices.

Organisational measures to support employees who are experiencing family and domestic violence (FDV) are increasingly seen as an important policy response to mitigate the consequences of such violence and promote gender equality. However, little is known about the costs to employers of providing such workplace policies. This paper assesses the costs and benefits to Australian employers of providing 10 days of paid FDV leave to employees experiencing such violence. We draw on a case study based on the evidence presented to the Fair Work Commission which contributed to their 2023 enactment that modern award wages should include 10 days of paid FDV leave. Using a bottom-up approach and utilising individual-level data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, our estimates reveal that the total annual cost to employers of providing an entitlement of 10 days of paid FDV leave to award-covered employees is between $13.1 million and $34.3 million. Our analysis highlights the role of robust economic analysis in generating evidence for policy change and offers an approach that can be applied in evaluating costs and benefits of other employer initiatives of similar nature.

Discussions of the difference between Indigenous and Western legal systems, and the subsequent potential weaving of the two, have become a focus of Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) law academics and practitioners in recent years. Furthermore, industrial relations may have the potential to further some of this weaving within the world of work. This paper explores the weaving of tikanga Māori (Māori legal systems) and English-derived state law within Aotearoa NZ workplace personal grievance processes, by explaining the meaning of tikanga Māori concepts and their potential application to workplace personal grievance processes. It asks: what is the tikanga Māori take–utu–ea (∼cause–reciprocation–satisfaction) framework in relation to workplace personal grievances? What role could such a framework potentially have in ensuring reciprocal, mana (status)-enhancing approaches for personal grievance processes? This paper shows how current workplace personal grievance processes in Aotearoa NZ often produce ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, and such outcomes are not conducive to maintaining or improving employment relationships. Such processes not only uphold obligations and duties to Indigenous peoples in a workplace context but also improve outcomes for all working peoples. Overall, this paper contributes to an emerging, broader discussion about the world of work and current grievance systems, and how these are unsuitable for the modern era, concluding that Indigenous solutions offer much prospect.

Notwithstanding their increased participation in the labour market, women across the world continue to bear family care responsibilities disproportionately, and, consequently, often find it difficult to balance effectively their dual roles as workers and caregivers. This is particularly the case for women working in the informal economy. Too often they have limited or no access to maternity protection. This situation is a potential barrier to the achievement of, among others, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 5 and 8, specifically target 5.c which calls for the adoption and strengthening of policies and legislation to promote gender equality as well as targets 8.5 (achievement of full and productive employment and decent work for all) and 8.8 (protection of labour rights and promotion of secure working environments for all workers, including those in precarious employment). Thus, as this Themed Collection posits, it is crucial to get a deeper understanding of obstacles to gender equality in the labour market, and the extent to which these are effectively addressed. This paper draws largely on qualitative data from recent (2022) case studies of three countries in sub-Saharan Africa—the region with the highest proportion of women working in this economy— in order to highlight some of the structural barriers to maternity protection for women in the informal economy. Particular focus is on legislative and institutional frameworks, workers’ union membership, and the financing of maternity protection. Strategic recommendations for achieving both gender equality and decent work through improved access to maternity protection conclude the paper.

This article considers how the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a remarkable social experiment in the market for migrant ‘au pair’ labour in Australia. As has been illustrated in broader accounts of the pandemic’s ‘care crisis’, the global health emergency cracked open underlying fault lines, as capacities for social reproduction were stretched to breaking point. At the same time, the pandemic deepened the precarity of temporary migrants as they lost jobs and incomes, experienced housing insecurity, and were excluded from state emergency relief measures. Building on interdisciplinary feminist literatures on gender, work, migration, and social reproduction, this article adds to emerging scholarship on the growing phenomenon of au pairing in Australia to examine drivers of demand, migrant mobilities in and out of au pair labour, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon the market. While au pairing emerged during the pandemic as a form of survival work where migrants had little negotiating power, the market ultimately shifted when emergency childcare measures were withdrawn, migrant labour became scarce, and visa restrictions on working hours were relaxed. In addition to providing new empirical insights into au pairing in Australia, the findings underscore the constitutive role of law and policy settings in shaping the distributions and divisions of reproductive labour, which can both consolidate and also challenge broader gendered care norms and distributions and the social reproduction bargain.

This article explores the subjective experiences of transition to employment in the outsourced/offshored business service sector in Romania. Based on 138 interviews with junior and senior graduates, it maps how different ‘tidal economic waves’ associated with Romania’s economic transition have intersected working biographies since the 1990s. The paper argues that the sector generates many middle-class employment opportunities, legitimising consensus around the idea that ‘this is the best time to be young.’ Yet, informed by elements of political economy, it challenges the conventional repertoires of optimism. In doing so, it tentatively questions the long-term occupational prospects of those who take up entry-level positions in (arguably) automatable, on-the-move, and standardised jobs with lesser high-end value. The paper communicates using the structure of opportunity theory by highlighting how, alongside location, the concept of time (personal, historical, and company time) is woven into the work biographies of members of an under-researched group.

Since the early 1950s, national statisticians have regarded unpaid work as non-economic, excluding it from GDP. Feminist scholars argue this exclusion reflects a gender-biased view of progress that renders women’s non-market productivity invisible. As what gets measured drives policy priorities and resource allocation, breastfeeding highlights the need to account for women’s unpaid care work in economic statistics. This paper advances the Beyond GDP agenda by demonstrating how market-derived prices can improve the measurement and recognition of women’s lactation labour. We first trace the historical displacement of breastfeeding by commercial formula and identify key economic drivers. Next, we review critiques of GDP and debates over including non-market household services in the UN’s System of National Accounts. We then present novel estimates of breast milk’s economic value in selected countries. Our analysis shows that existing market prices can robustly proxy for breastfeeding work, correcting GDP’s gender bias and realigning policy priorities. Including human milk production in core economic indicators not only reflects its true contribution but also promotes women’s and children’s rights and supports sustainable development through comprehensive true-cost accounting.

The Indonesian government has implemented the Pre-Employment Card Programme in response to current employment challenges, including high unemployment and underemployment rates among the youth in Indonesia. This research aims to analyse the Programme’s impact on the labour market outcomes, especially involving the youth. The research employs propensity score matching to examine the Programme’s impact on the probability of securing employment and the work hours among the youth. The study involved participants who were unemployed and employed when enrolling in the programme. The results show that the programme was statistically significant in increasing the probability of employment among the unemployed participants. However, it was not statistically significant to increase the work hours of those employed during the enrolment. These findings provide an initial assessment of the programme’s effectiveness in addressing employment challenges faced by the youth in Indonesia.