Parental leave, social inequalities and the future of work: possibilities and constraints within the Australian policy framework

ABSTRACT

Parental leave policies have considerable potential to contribute to the advancement of social equalities, however this is highly contingent on design features such as breadth of coverage and, for gender equality, support for a shared earner/carer social model. These characteristics are in turn shaped by the prevailing welfare state regime and gender order, with coverage also dependent on levels of labour market fragmentation and insecurity. In this paper we examine a number of these intersecting influences in the Australian case. We show that Australian parental leave policies have relatively broad coverage, but note limitations and gaps that could be exacerbated in a future, more fragmented, labour market. We also underline the extent to which current provisions reflect and consolidate, rather than challenge, a ‘maternalist’ care regime. In conclusion, we canvass strategies to optimise coverage and support gender equality in the future, recognising the constraints of path dependencies arising from Australia’s distinctive policy history and the ensuing tension between a ‘welfare’ and ‘employment’ basis for entitlements. Policy adaptations to strengthen connections with employment and move beyond a ‘primary carer’ focus are recommended as conducive to a more egalitarian future.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental leave
• gender equality
• social inequalities
• future of work
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Other similarly located policies include flexible working arrangements and childcare provisions, with the complementarity or misalignment of these sets of policies important for overall efficacy (Brady et al. 2018).

2. This term, and equivalents such as ‘sham contracting’ or ‘bogus self-employment’, refer to the (mis)classification of employees as self-employed contractors to evade labour laws and related employer responsibilities. The International Labour Office has used the following criteria to identify dependent self-employment: those classified as self-employed, but who do not have more than one client, or the authority to hire staff or the authority to make strategic decisions about how to run the business (ILO 2017, 5).

3. See also the ‘dual earner/dual caregiver’ society envisioned by Gornick and Meyers (2003) and Crompton (1999).

4. Defined by Bosch (2004, 618) as ‘a stable, socially protected, dependent, full-time job’ within a regulatory framework.

5. In addition to its ‘wage earner welfare state’ categorisation, Australia exhibits key features of Esping-Andersen’s (1990) ‘liberal welfare regime’ in the residual and targeted nature of social security benefits. This is both a corollary of its wage earners’ welfare state, which limited social welfare expansion by delivering benefits through industrial relations machinery, and a reflection of Australia’s close historical ties with other Anglophone/liberal welfare states.

6. We use the term ‘non-standard’ throughout to refer to forms of employment other than our SER proxy of full-time permanent employees.

7. For example, increases in the average age of mothers and declines in family size over recent decades (see ABS 2018b; Australian Institute of Family Studies 2019) may raise the likelihood of mothers returning to full-time work.

8. Our focus is solely on government entitlements at the national level; for information on employer-paid provisions in public and private sectors see, for example, Whitehouse et al. (2013), also Baird (2005) on provisions won through industrial bargaining.

9. The implications for gender equality depend also on patterns of usage, which – as noted earlier – are beyond the scope of this article.

10. In Australia, the Fair Work Ombudsman has made a number of decisions regarding the employment status of workers engaged in digital platform work. On several occasions it has determined that food delivery drivers were employees rather than independent contractors (proceeding to litigation in, for example, Fair Work Ombudsman v Skyter Pty Ltd and Dong Zhao 2018, but unable to continue litigation in relation to Foodora, which discontinued its operations in Australia in 2018). However it has recently determined that Uber drivers were not employees on the rationale that they were not required to perform work at set times (Fair Work Ombudsman 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gillian Whitehouse

Gillian Whitehouse is Professor of Political Science at the School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland. Her research focuses in particular on gender pay equity and the gendered impact of parental leave and related employment entitlements, both in Australia and cross-nationally.

Michelle Brady

Michelle Brady is an Honorary (Senior Fellow) within Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne and Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, Canada. Her research focuses on welfare to work, paternity leave, neoliberalism and childcare. Findings from this research have appeared in journals including Social Politics, Work, Employment and Society and Journal of Social Policy, and her co-edited book Governing practices: neoliberalism, governmentality, and the ethnographic imaginary (University of Toronto Press).