Women and hidden unemployment

The ABS figures on the labour market reflect an era when full-time male employment was the dominant employment type and downturns meant there may be a temporary period of unemployment during which men sought alternative employment. Female employment for older age groups was a curiosity and inconsequential for policy purposes.

This stereotype is no longer relevant when almost half the labour market is female, hidden unemployment is predominantly female and larger than official unemployment.

Moreover, the fact that a lack of child caring services is such a big issue related to women’s work-force attachment is completely inconsistent with current Commonwealth child care policy - which is 150 per cent focused on the under fives.

When will the policy makers realise that children grow up, year on year? There are far more un-supervised young school age children floating around the streets of our towns and cities than we can find places in formal child care. There are women choosing to work, part time, at lesser paid jobs; there are women, often sole parents, desperate to work longer hours; there are women who want to get into the work-place - what stops them is the lack of Commonwealth leadership on policy for care for school age children.

My grandmother was a single parent of four children, one with a developmental problem: she worked. She scrubbed shop floors, she kept a boarding house - she had no retirement savings. My mother worked, as did her husband - she was able to fit work around child rearing. I worked as did my husband - in my generation women married younger, had their children younger than do the current generations. I relied on friends and housekeepers for after school care - just as the current occupants of The Lodge rely on paid housekeepers.

Most women can’t afford that, and they want some decent Commonwealth policy to help them with out of school hours care, changes to retirement incomes policies and better access to re-training options.