Work and family: the challenge for modern Australia

The disparity in the earning ratio between women and men grows to 66 cents in the dollar when part time and casual workers are added into the equation. It is not surprising then, to find women make up 73 per cent of all part time employees and 60 per cent of the casual workforce.

Women in Australia are most likely to have children when they are between the ages of 30-34. This is the age when women are most likely to be combining work and family. It is no coincidence that it is when the earnings of men and women over 30 are compared that the earning gap is most obvious. But, disparate earning ratios are only part of the workplace disadvantage that women experience due to their child bearing role.

It still comes as something of a shock for many independent and confident young women when they discover a whole new world of discrimination or barriers to work when they embark upon parenthood.

During pregnancy, there are still many employers who consider that women do not work as productively, while pregnant - they either demote or dismiss them, deny them training or otherwise allow their careers to stagnate.

At a paid maternity leave consultation held with union representatives in Tasmania a union representative relayed the experience of a member, who was forced to move to a different work area (away from the public eye) when she was pregnant as her employer felt that her 'bulge' showed that she led an active sexual life!

This treatment does not end after the birth. For women who want and choose to breast-feed, many workplaces cannot or will not provide suitable conditions for the expressing of milk.

Many women have to settle for unchallenging jobs, or to forego promotions in order to secure part time work or flexible hours. There remains a perception that part time work cannot be challenging and that part time workers are not sufficiently committed.

Women often experience a lack of sufficient financial support during maternity. They have no guarantees that a job is there when they return from maternity leave. They have difficulty accessing affordable childcare and difficulty finding working hours that suit their families. Or they have poor access to flexible work conditions, which would allow them to occasionally take time off for family reasons.

Women are also the ones who end up taking large amounts of unpaid leave, or just time out of the workforce, further contributing to the direct economic cost they bear for having our children.

If you query this, if you think that families will always share their income, do I need to remind you of the high rate of divorce over the long term? Or the higher reliance of older women on social welfare compared with the reliance of older men?

Some women work because they have to financially, some because they may choose not to work while their children are young, or decide to do so to keep their skills current. Others see paid work as satisfying, as a time for themselves away from the home.

And of course there are many of us for whom work is intrinsically satisfying - it forms part of our identities. Women work for a range of reasons. Just as men do. And we have a right to do so.