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Holding up half the sky? Women at work in the 21st century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Barbara Pocock
Barbara Pocock*
Affiliation:
University of South Australia, Australia
*
Barbara Pocock, University of South Australia, City West Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia. Email: barbara.pocock@unisa.edu.au
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Abstract

This is an edited version of the 2015 Fay Gale Lecture soon after the author’s retirement as Director of the University of South Australia’s Centre for Work + Life. It begins with the author’s personal work reminiscences as a touchstone for reflecting on continuity and change in women’s working lives. A first job in sheep-shearing sheds illustrates the insecurity and hard physical and emotional labour associated with manual work. Despite strides in Australian women’s qualification levels, discrimination is being ‘refreshed and remade’. Examples include recent Australian reversals in paid parental leave policy and the role of sexual harassment in patrolling work boundaries. The institutional basis of unequal pay and inflexible work/family time allocation is demonstrated in the Productivity Commission’s 2015 Workplace Relations agenda. This recommends reduced Sunday penalty rates that will disproportionately affect feminised, low-paid retail and hospitality work and rejects any strengthening of parents’ statutory right to request flexible work arrangements. Three remedies are proposed – creative approaches to research, campaigning and political action.

Keywords

J31J58J71Gender pay gappaid parental leavepenalty ratesProductivity Commissionsexual harassmentwork–life collision
Type
Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 27 , Issue 2: Symposium: Permanent Productivity Crisis - the Productivity Commission’s role in economic and social policy in Australia , June 2016 , pp. 147 - 163
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2016

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