Disrupting the Hegemonic Temporality of Superannuation

Abstract

The present structure of retirement income in Australia is increasingly shaped by superannuation. Superannuation is a government-mandated and subsidised savings vehicle for individuals to address the specific problem of their own retirement income. Employers, together with individuals, contribute a percentage of the individual’s earned wages throughout the working life cycle; upon reaching preservation age and retiring, individuals may access the superannuation account. I argue that the superannuation system is a technology of governance informed by specific conceptions of time. As such, retirement is the penultimate event in a sequence of chrono-norms – typical life-defining events – earned by achieving the preceding sequence of chrono-norms in the proper order and without disruption. Such a program hinges on what Elizabeth Freeman conceptualises as ‘chrononormativity’ – the way in which hegemonic time is used to organise the individual body toward maximum productivity. Individuals whose lifetimes do not adhere to chrononormative trajectories are excluded from this system, particularly when those temporal trajectories are shaped by gender and care-based temporalities. Accordingly, this article positions the temporality of superannuation in Australia within a hegemonic time situated in chrononormativity, and then suggests an alternative theory to account for the gendered nature of care-based temporalities.

Notes

1 See Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth); Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994 (Cth) s 6.01.

2 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Commonwealth of Australia, Gender Indicators, Australia, August 2016: Economic Security 4125.0 (31 August 2016). See also Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Commonwealth of Australia, Women’s Economic Security in Retirement: Perspective Paper (online) 2015 <https://www.wgea.gov.au/sites/default/files/PP_womens_economic_security_in_retirement.pdf> (last accessed 30 September 2016); Ross Clare, Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia Limited, Superannuation Account Balances by Age and Gender (online) December 2015 <http://www.superannuation.asn.au/ArticleDocuments/359/ASFA_Super-account-balances_Dec2015.pdf> (last accessed 30 September 2016).

3 See, for example, Australian Human Rights Commission, Investing in Care: Recognising and Valuing Those Who Care (2013) (‘Investing in Care Report’); Australian Human Rights Commission, Accumulating Poverty? Women’s Experiences of Inequality over the Lifecycle (2009) (‘Accumulating Poverty Report’); Lyn Craig, Contemporary Motherhood: The Impact of Children on Adult Time (Ashgate 2012); Lyn Craig, ‘Does Father Care Mean Fathers Share? A Comparison of How Mothers and Fathers in Intact Families Spend Time with Children’ (2006) 20(2) Gender & Society 259; Barbara Pocock, The Labour Market Ate My Babies: Work, Children and a Sustainable Future (Federation Press 2006).

4 See Therese Jefferson and Alison Preston, ‘Australia’s “Other” Gender Wage Gap: Baby Boomers and Compulsory Superannuation Accounts’ (2005) 11(1) Feminist Economics 79.

5 See Thomas Lemke, ‘“The Birth of Bio-Politics”: Michel Foucault’s Lecture at the College de France on Neo-Liberal Governmentality’ (2001) 30(2) Economy and Society 190.

6 Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations (Stanford University Press 2000).

7 Elizabeth Freeman, Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (Duke University Press 2010).

8 See also Investing in Care Report, above note 3; Accumulating Poverty Report, above note 3; MV Lee Badgett and Nancy Folbre, ‘Assigning Care: Gender Norms and Economic Outcomes’ (1999) 138(3) International Labour Review 311; Anna Chapman, ‘Industrial Law, Working Hours, and Work, Care and Family’ (2010) 36(3) Monash University Law Review 190.

9 It is beyond the scope of this article to fully explore how disrupted time applies to women who do not have childcare or other care responsibilities, however I believe that a version of it remains applicable.

10 Bourdieu above note 6.

11 As above at 138.

12 As above at 213.

13 As above at 9.

14 Davina Cooper, ‘Time against Time: Normative Temporalities and the Failure of Community Labour in Local Exchange Trading Schemes’ (2013) 22(1) Time & Society 31 at 35 (emphasis added).

15 Freeman above note 7 at 3.

16 As above.

17 As above.

18 As above at 11.

19 Matt Hodges, ‘Immanent Anthropology: A Comparative Study of “Process” in Contemporary France’ (2014) 20(1) Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 33.

20 As above at 35 citing Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago University Press 1958).

21 See Bourdieu above note 6 at 222; Lisa Adkins, ‘Feminism after Measure’ (2009) 10(3) Feminist Theory 323; Lisa Adkins, ‘Sociological Futures: From Clock Time to Event Time’ (2009) 14(4) Sociological Research Online 8 at para 3.1. See also Emily Grabham, ‘Dilemmas of Value in Post-Industrial Economies: Retrieving Clock Time through the Four-Day Work Week’ (2009) 42 Connecticut Law Review 1285.

22 See also Cooper above note 14; Emily Grabham, ‘Governing Permanence: Trans Subjects, Time, and the Gender Recognition Act’ (2010) 19(1) Social & Legal Studies 107.

23 Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) s 6.

24 Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth). The mechanism is one pillar in Australia’s retirement system, which also includes the age pension and private savings and assets. The age pension is a lower-level government-provided income that is subject to means-testing and asset-testing. See Treasury, Commonwealth of Australia, Australia’s Future Tax System: The Retirement Income System: Report on Strategic Issues (2009) 8-13; Australian Law Reform Commission, Grey Areas: Age Barriers to Work in Commonwealth Laws Discussion Paper 78 (2012) 8.

25 Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) ss 11-12, 16.

26 As above at s 19(2).

27 As above at s 15(3). A SG is required for employees earning at least $450 a month, as above at s 27(2).

28 Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) s 15.

29 Australian Taxation Office, Commonwealth of Australia, Salary Sacrifice Arrangements for Employees (online) 16 October 2015 <https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Fringe-benefits-tax-(FBT)/In-detail/Employees/Salary-sacrifice-arrangements-for-employees/> (last accessed 30 September 2016).

30 Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) ss 292-25, 292-165, 995-1.

31 See Department of Social Services, Commonwealth of Australia, Income Support Customers: A Statistical Overview 2013 Statistical Paper 12 (2014) at 13; Jeff Harmer, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Pension Review: Background Paper (2008) at 37-38; Workplace Gender Equality Agency above note 2 at 2.

32 See Stephen Linstead, ‘Comment: Gender Blindness or Gender Suppression? A Comment on Fiona Wilson’s Research Note’ (2000) 21(1) Organization Studies 297. See also Jo Grady, ‘Gendering Pensions: Making Women Visible’ (2015) 22(5) Gender, Work & Organization 445; Jay Ginn and Sara Arber, ‘Pension Penalties: The Gendered Division of Occupational Welfare’ (1993) 7(1) Work, Employment & Society 47.

33 The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, Superannuation Statistics: September 2016 (online) September 2016 <http://www.superannuation.asn.au/ArticleDocuments/269/SuperStats-Sep2016.pdf.aspx> (last accessed 30 September 2016); Senate Economics References Committee, Commonwealth of Australia, ‘A Husband is Not a Retirement Plan’: Achieving Economic Security for Women in Retirement (April 2016) 9 (‘Economic Security for Women in Retirement Senate Report’).

34 A figure of 34.6% of women reported having no superannuation balance: Clare Ross, Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, An Update on the Level and Distribution of Retirement Savings (online) March 2014 <http://www.superannuation.asn.au/ArticleDocuments/359/1403-LevelAndDistributionRetirementSavings.pdf.aspx> 4 (last accessed 30 September 2016).

35 Ross above note 2 at 3.

36 Marcia Keegan, Ann Harding and Simon Kelly, The Adequacy of a Mature Superannuation System: A Dynamic Microsimulation Analysis paper presented at the 18th Annual Colloquium of Superannuation Researchers, Sydney 12-13 July 2010 at 6.

37 Men with children earned, on average, $2.5 million compared to $1.3 million for women with children: Rebecca Cassells, Yogi Vidyattama, Riyana Miranti and Justine McNamara, The Impact of a Sustained Gender Wage Gap on the Australian Economy Report to the Office for Women, Department of Families, Community Services, Housing and Indigenous Affairs (November 2009) 9; AMP.NATSEM University of Canberra, She Works Hard for the Money: Australian Women and the Gender Divide AMP.NATSEM Income and Wealth Report Issue 22 (April 2009) 32.

38 See, for example, Carole A Green, ‘Race, Ethnicity, and Social Security Retirement Age in the US’ (2005) 11(2) Feminist Economics 117; Wendy Loretto and Sarah Vickerstaff, ‘The Domestic and Gendered Context for Retirement’ (2013) 66(1) Human Relations 65; Robert Maier, Willibrord De Graaf and Patricia Frericks, ‘Pension Reforms in Europe and Life-Course Politics’ (2007) 41(5) Social Policy & Administration 487; Patricia Peinado, ‘A Dynamic Gender Analysis of Spain’s Pension Reforms of 2011’ (2014) 20(3) Feminist Economics 163; Tom Sefton, Jane Falkingham and Maria Evandrou, ‘The Relationship Between Women’s Work Histories and Incomes in Later Life in the UK, US and West Germany’ (2011) 21(1) Journal of European Social Policy 20; María Jesús Vara, ‘Gender Inequality in the Spanish Public Pension System’ (2013) 19(4) Feminist Economics 136.

39 Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Commonwealth of Australia, Parenting, Work and the Gender Pay Gap: Perspective Paper (online) 2016 <https://www.wgea.gov.au/sites/default/files/2014-03-04_PP_Pay_Gap_and_Parenting.pdf> 1 (last accessed 30 September 2016). See also Australian Bureau of Statistics above note 2.

40 As above. See also Patricia Apps and Ray Rees, ‘Gender, Time Use, and Public Policy over the Life Cycle’ (2005) 21(3) Oxford Review of Economic Policy 439 at 440; Shahra Razavi, The Political and Social Economy of Care in a Development Context: Conceptual Issues, Research Questions and Policy Options (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development 2007) 2.

41 See Ginn and Arber above note 32.

42 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Commonwealth of Australia, Life Expectancy (online) <http://www.aihw.gov.au/deaths/life-expectancy/> (last accessed 30 September 2016).

43 As above.

44 See Rice Warner Actuaries, ‘Initiative to Close Superannuation Savings Gap for Females’ Application for Temporary Exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act to the Australian Human Rights Commission (online) 10 April 2012 <http://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/legal/exemptions/sda_exemption/exemption/rice_warner_IGA_25_9_2012_12_15_19_709.pdf> (last accessed 30 September 2016).

45 As above; ANZ, Women’s Report: Barriers to Achieving Financial Gender Equity (2009) 9.

46 Economic Security for Women in Retirement Senate Report above note 33.

47 See Diane Elson, Male Bias in the Development Process (Manchester University Press 1991); Grady above note 32; Johanna Kantola, Feminists Theorize the State (Palgrave Macmillan 2006); Johanna Kantola, ‘Why Do All the Women Disappear? Gendering Processes in a Political Science Department’ (2008) 15(2) Gender, Work and Organization 202; Patricia Lewis, ‘The Quest for Invisibility: Female Entrepreneurs and the Masculine Norm of Entrepreneurship’ (2006) 13(5) Gender, Work & Organization 453; Janet Smithson and Elizabeth H Stokoe, ‘Discourses of Work-Life Balance: Negotiating “Genderblind” Terms in Organizations’ (2005) 12(2) Gender, Work & Organization 147; Marilyn Waring, If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics (Harper & Row 1988). See also Linstead above note 32.

48 Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994 (Cth) div 6.7; Australian Taxation Office, Commonwealth of Australia, T3 Superannuation Contributions on Behalf of Your Spouse 2015 (online) 29 May 2015 <https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Tax-return/2015/Supplementary-tax-return/Tax-offset-questions-T3-T9/T3-Superannuation-contributions-on-behalf-of-your-spouse/> (last accessed 30 September 2016).

49 As above.

50 As above.

51 See, generally, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Commonwealth of Australia, Trends in Superannuation Coverage Australian Social Trends 4102.0 (2009).

52 Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) s 292.85(3)-(4); Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994 (Cth) div 6.7; Australian Taxation Office above note 48.

53 Superannuation (Excess Non-Concessional Contributions Tax) Act 2007 (Cth); Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) ss 292.80, 292.85.

54 Superannuation (Government Co-contribution for Low Income Earners) Act 2003 (Cth) s 10(1C).

55 As above at s 12C(2).

56 See Australian Bureau of Statistics, Commonwealth of Australia, Employment Arrangements, Retirement and Superannuation, Australia (Apr to Jul 2007 (Re-Issue)) 6361.0 (2009) 23; Economic Security for Women in Retirement Senate Report above note 33.

57 See Accumulating Poverty Report above note 3; Investing in Care Report above note 3; Jenni Millbank, ‘Hey Girls, Have We Got a Super Deal for You: Reform of Superannuation and Matrimonial Property’ (1993) 7(2) Australian Journal of Family Law 104. See also Grady above note 32.

58 See Grania Sheehan, April Chrzanowski and John Dewar, ‘Superannuation and Divorce in Australia: An Evaluation of Post-Reform Practice and Settlement Outcomes’ (2008) 22(2) International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 206; Grania Sheehan, ‘Financial Aspects of the Divorce Transition in Australia: Recent Empirical Findings’ (2002) 16(1) International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 95.

59 See Accumulating Poverty Report above note 3; Investing in Care Report above note 3; Craig 2012 above note 3; MV Lee Badgett and Nancy Folbre, ‘Assigning Care: Gender Norms and Economic Outcomes’ (1999) 138 International Labour Review 311; Nancy Folbre and Michael Bittman, Family Time: The Social Organization of Care vol 2 (Psychology Press 2004); Peta Tancred, ‘Women’s Work: A Challenge to the Sociology of Work’ (1995) 2(1) Gender, Work & Organization 11. See also Apps and Rees above note 40; Martin Kohli, ‘The Institutionalization of the Life Course: Looking Back to Look Ahead’ (2007) 4(3-4) Research in Human Development 253.

60 Yvonne Hartman, ‘In Bed with the Enemy: Some Ideas on the Connections between Neoliberalism and the Welfare State’ (2005) 53(1) Current Sociology 57, 59.

61 As above at 58-59.

62 Lemke above note 5 at 200.

63 Bourdieu above note 6.

64 Lemke above note 5 at 203. See also Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (MIT Press 2015).

65 See, for example, Lemke above note 5 at 191; Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne and Nikolas Rose (eds) Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and the Rationalities of Government (University College London Press 1996).

66 Lemke above note 5 at 201.

67 Lemke above note 5. See also Fiona Allon, ‘“Home Economics”: The Management of the Household as an Enterprise’ (2011) 68 The Journal of Australian Political Economy 128.

68 Lemke above note 5. See also Brown above note 64 at 39-40.

69 Contrast Halberstam’s sense of ‘failure’, Judith Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Duke University Press 2011).

70 Gøsta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Princeton University Press 1990) 20.

71 See also Lois McNay, ‘Self as Enterprise: Dilemmas of Control and Resistance in Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics’ (2009) 26(6) Theory, Culture & Society 55.

72 Lemke above note 5 at 203.

73 See, for example, Maier, De Graaf and Frericks above note 38 at 489.

74 See also Allon above note 67.

75 As above.

76 See Carroll L Estes, ‘Social Security Privatization and Older Women: A Feminist Political Economy Perspective’ (2004) 18(1) Journal of Aging Studies 9 at 10; Sheehan, Chrzanowski and Dewar above note 58.

77 See Janeen Baxter, Belinda Hewitt and Mark Western, ‘Who Uses Paid Domestic Labor in Australia? Choice and Constraint in Hiring Household Help’ (2009) 15(1) Feminist Economics 1. See also Emily Grabham, ‘The Strange Temporalities of Work-Life Balance Law’ (2014) 4(1) feminists@law (online) <https://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/feministsatlaw/article/view/101> (last accessed 30 September 2016).

78 See Waring above note 47. See also Janeen Baxter and Belinda Hewitt, ‘Negotiating Domestic Labor: Women’s Earnings and Housework Time in Australia’ (2013) 19(1) Feminist Economics 29; Linstead above note 32; Tancred above note 59; Grady above note 32.

79 See also Hodges above note 19.

80 However, there are other ways to contribute towards an existing superannuation fund, as discussed above.

81 Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) s 6.

82 See also Lisa Adkins and Maryanne Dever, ‘Housework, Wages and Money: The Category of the Female Principal Breadwinner in Financial Capitalism’ (2014) 29(79) Australian Feminist Studies 50; Tancred above note 59; Waring above note 47.

83 See Workplace Gender Equality Agency above note 2 at 1; Australian Council of Social Service, Poverty in Australia 2014 (Australian Council of Social Service 2014) 10; Accumulating Poverty Report above note 3 at 22. See also Grady above note 32; Ginn and Arber above note 32.

84 See Investing in Care Report above note 3; Accumulating Poverty Report above note 3; Lois Bryson, ‘Revaluing the Household Economy’ (1996) 19(3) Women’s Studies International Forum 207; Jenny Cameron and Katherine Julie Gibson-Graham, ‘Feminising the Economy: Metaphors, Strategies, Politics’ (2003) 10(2) Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 145; Lyn Craig, ‘Parental Education, Time in Paid Work and Time with Children: An Australian Time-Diary Analysis’ (2006) 57(4) The British Journal of Sociology 553; Nancy Folbre, ‘Measuring Care: Gender, Empowerment, and the Care Economy’ (2006) 7(2) Journal of Human Development 183; Folbre and Bittman above note 59; Duncan Ironmonger, ‘Counting Outputs, Capital Inputs and Caring Labor: Estimating Gross Household Product’ (1996) 2(1) Feminist Economics 37; Barbara Pocock, The Work/Life Collision: What Work is Doing to Australians and What to Do About It (Federation Press 2003). See also, generally, Judy Fudge and Rosemary Owens (eds) Precarious Work, Women, and the New Economy: The Challenge to Legal Norms (Bloomsbury 2006).

85 See also Grady above note 32; Ginn and Arber above note 32; Tancred above note 59; Adkins and Dever above note 82.

86 See also Loretto and Vickerstaff above note 38.

87 Rita Felski, Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture (New York University Press 2000) 17.

88 As above.

89 As above.

90 As above at 18.

91 Kathi Weeks, The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (Duke University Press 2011); Kathi Weeks, ‘“Hours for What We Will”: Work, Family, and the Movement for Shorter Hours’ (2009) 35(1) Feminist Studies 101.

92 LA Paul, Transformative Experience (Oxford University Press 2014).

93 As above; LA Paul, ‘What You Can’t Expect When You’re Expecting’ (2015) 92(2) Res Philosophica 149.

94 Julia Kristeva, ‘Women’s Time’ (1981) 7(1) Signs 13.

95 Apps and Rees above note 59. See also Kohli above note 59.

96 Apps and Rees above note 40.

97 See also Grady above note 32.

98 Apps and Rees above note 40.

99 Lois McNay, ‘Gender, Habitus and the Field: Pierre Bourdieu and the Limits of Reflexivity’ (1999) 16(1) Theory, Culture & Society 95, 101; Bourdieu above note 6 at 138.

100 McNay as above at 101.

101 As above.

102 Bourdieu above note 6 at 213.

103 Australian Bureau of Statistics above note 2; Workplace Gender Equality Agency above note 39.

104 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare above note 42.

105 Australian Bureau of Statistics above note 2; Workplace Gender Equality Agency above note 39. See also Apps and Rees above note 40.