The gendered character of the Australian labour market is rarely the subject of direct research and policy making in Australia at present. Conservative govern ments uncritically endorse the globalising and so-called deregulation of the labour market, suggesting that it offers a boon for women. This paper reviews aspects of women's current labour market experience by referring to characteristics that range across the boundaries of home and waged work and suggest continuing interdependencies between the spheres. These include work patterns; sex segregation; wages, conditions and bargaining; quality of working life and 'family-friendliness' in the workplace. The article summarises current literature and offers some new analysis and data. There are few signs that women's employment status is improving relative to men's, and instead some indicators suggest an increasing divide in tbe labour markets—both between the sexes and between women. The analysis is relevant to theory, policy and the practical business of combining paid work and home life.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Affirmative Action Review Secretariat (1998) 'Issues paper', Department of Workplace Relations and Small Business, Canberra.
2.
Adkins, Lisa (1995) Gendered work: sexuality and the labour market , Buckingham, Open University Press .
3.
Adkins, Lisa (1998) 'Feminisation without women', paper presented at Women, Work and Well Being Seminar, Department of Sociology, May 1998.
4.
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Cat. nos 6204.0, 6101.0, 6203.0, 6325.0, 6302.0.
5.
Bittman, Michael and Jocelyn Pixley (1997) The double life of the family, Sydney, Allen & Unwin.
6.
Borland, Jeff and Steven Kennedy (1998) 'Dimensions, structure and history of Australian unemployment', paper to the Conference on Unemployment and the Australian Labour Market, Reserve Bank of Australia and Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University , H. C. Coombs Centre for Financial Studies, Kirnbilli, 9-10 June 1998.
7.
Bryson, Lois (1994) 'The unpaid contribution of women', Proceedings of the Women, Power and Politics Conference, 8-11 October 1994, Adelaide South Australia, 137-49.
8.
Buchanan, John, and Sue Bearfield (1997) Reforming working time: the future of work, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Melbourne.
9.
Campbell, lain (1998) 'Labour restructuring and the growth of casual employment in Australia, 1982-1996', PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, Melbourne.
10.
Campbell, Iain and John Burgess (1997) 'National patterns of temporary employment: the distinctive case of casual employment in Australia', National Key Centre for Industrial Relations, Monash University, Working Paper no. 53, July 1997.
11.
Chapman, B.J. (1984) 'Sex differences in earnings: changes over the 1970s in the Australian public service', in Chapman, Isaac and Niland, Australian labour economics readings.
12.
Chapman, B. J., J. E. Isaac and J. R. Niland (eds) ( 1984) Australian labour economics readings, third edition, Australia, Macmillan.
13.
Chapman, B.J. and Charles Mulvey (1986) 'An analysis of the origins of the sex differences in Australian wages', Journal of Industrial Relations, 28, 4.
14.
Charlesworth, Sarah (1996) Stretcbing flexibility: enterprise bargaining, women workers and cbanges to working bours, Report of the Flexible Working Hours and Women Project, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Sydney.
15.
Crockett, Geoffrey (1996) 'Shifts in gender segregation in professional occupations in Australia— 1981-1991', Australian Bulletin of Labour , 22, 4 December 1996, 265-74.
16.
Department of Industrial Relations (1997) Enterprise bargaining in 1996, Canberra, Department of Industrial Relations.
17.
Edwards, Anne and Susan Alagarey (1995) Women in a restructuring Australia, Sydney, Allen & Unwin.
18.
Glucksmann, Miriam (1995) 'Why work? Gender and the "total social organisation of labour"', Gender, Work and Organization, 2, 2, April 1995, 63-75..
19.
Goward, Pru (1998a) 'Country statement—Australia', 42nd Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, New York, 2-13 March 1998.
20.
Goward, Pru (1998b) 'Women in the post-industrial society', speech at the Sydney Institute, 5 April 1998.
21.
Gornick, J. and J. Jacobs (1996) 'A cross-national analysis of the wages of part-time workers, Work, Employment and Society10, 1, 1-27.
22.
Gregory, R.G. and Anne Daly (1991) 'Can economic theory explain why Australian women are so well paid relative to their United States counterparts?', International Review of Comparative Public Policy, 3, 81-125.
23.
Heiler, Katherine (1996a) 'Is enterprise bargaining good for your health?' , ACIRRT Alonograph, no. 14, Sydney.
24.
Heiler, Katherine (1996b) 'Working time arrangements in Australia, a policy free zone?', in M. Bryce (ed.), Industrial relations policy under the microscope, ACIRRT Working Paper no. 40, April.
25.
Kamarul, Anna (1994) 'Patterns of women's employment in recovery', Women, Power and Politics Conference, Adelaide , 8-11 October 1994.
26.
Kidd, Michael, and Xin Meng (1997) 'Trends in the Australian gender wage differential over the 1980s: some evidence on the effectiveness of legislative reform', Australian Economic Record, 30, 1,31-44.
27.
Langford, Malcolm (1995) 'The gender wage gap in the 1990s', Australian Economic Papers, 34, 64 June 1995, 62-85.
28.
Miller P.W. (1994) 'Occupational segregation and wages in Australia'Economic Letters, 45, July, 367-71.
29.
Mills, Albert and Peta Tancred (1992) Gendering organisational analysis, London, Sage.
30.
Morehead, Alison, Mairi Steele, Miehael Alexander, Kerry Stephen, Linton Duffin (1997) Cbanges at work: the 1995 Australian workplace industrial relations survey, Melbourne, Longman.
31.
Moylan, Judi (97) Questions without notice, Weekly House Hansard , 18 November 1997, 10624.
32.
Moylan, Judi (1998) Speech at the launch of Equal pay bandbook, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 16 February 1997.
33.
Mumford, Karen (1989) Women working, Sydney, Allen & Unwin.
34.
Norris, Keith( 1997) The economics of Australian labour markets, fourth edition, Melbourne, Longman.
35.
Oecd (1984) Women and their integration in the economy, Paris, OECD.
36.
Owen, S. (1987) 'Household production and economic efficiency: arguments for and against specialisation', Work, Employment and Society, 1, 2, 157-78.
37.
Peetz, David, A. Preston, J. Docherty (1993) Workplace bargainirtg in the international context, Industrial Relations Research Monograph, Canberra, Department ofIndustrial Relations.
38.
Pocock, Barbara (ed.) (1997) Strife: sex and politics in labour unions, Sydney, Allen & Unwin.
39.
Pocock, Barbara and Thomson ( 1997) 'Moving on from masculinity? Australian unions' industrial agenda', in Pocock, Strife, 67-91.
40.
Preston, Alison (1997) 'Where are we now with human capital theory in Australia?', Economic Record, 73, 220, March 1997, 51-78.
41.
Probert, Belinda (1988) 'Part-time working arrangements', paper at an Academic Forum convened by Parliamentarians, Parliament House, 5 March.
42.
Rees Teresa (1992) Women and the labour market, London, Routledge.
43.
Russell, Lani and Marian Sawer (1997) 'Where does policy come from? A case study of the origins of the Australian Women's Bureau', unpublished paper.
44.
Sharp, Rhonda (1994) 'The power of a feminist economics', Proceedings of the Women, Power and Politics Conference, Adelaide, 8-11 October 1994, 190-203.
45.
Snooks, Graham (1994) Portrait of the family within the total economy: A study in longrun dynamics, Australia, 1788-1990, Cambridge , Cambridge University Press.
Wooden, Mark (1997) 'Enterprise bargaining and the gender earnings gap', Australian Bulletin of Labour, 23, 3, September 1997, 214-226.
48.
Wooden, Mark (1998a) 'Gender pay equity and comparable worth in Australia: a reassessment', Working Paper no. 148, National Institute of Labour Studies, Adelaide.
49.
Wooden, Mark (1998b) 'Explaining wage outcomes: the role of firm and workplace characteristics', paper prepared for the US Bureau of the Census's International Symposium on Linked EmployerlEmployce Data, Washington, DC, 1998.
