thirteen - Forming Australian families: gender ideologies and policy settings

Summary

Introduction

The relationship between family-friendly policy settings and the ways in which care and employment are managed within families is a complex one. In the Australian context, Gillian Whitehouse (2002), examining parental employment patterns, has argued that gender ideologies may be as important in shaping care/work decisions as the policy framework within which such decisions are made. Australia has experienced strong labour market growth in recent years and there has been dynamic rhetoric around sustainable economic growth and labour market shortages. This labour market need has thrown focus on the importance of women's paid labour. At the same time, there has been significant emphasis on the maintenance of the national fertility rate. In this chapter, I draw on some key findings of the Families, Fertility and the Future study from 2002/03 to examine the gendered ideologies of care and employment in Australia over the past five years. I argue that the ways in which respondents described their negotiation of work–life issues offers a ground to critically examine current family and industrial policy developments in Australia, focusing on care and employment. I argue that families are responding to the implicit, not explicit, messages about family and work, where gendered ideologies of care are being reinforced through the commodification and individualisation of caring labour. Despite an avowed commitment to women's paid work and rhetoric focused on ‘working families’, current family and industrial policy settings are reinforcing and potentially revitalising the male breadwinner family model in Australia. In conclusion, I argue that despite rhetoric around ‘working families’, Australian workplace and family policies continue to reveal a traditionally gendered approach to the reconciliation of work and care.

How do we work and care? Australian policies and Practices

Faced with the dual imperatives of encouraging women's paid work and maintaining fertility over the past decade, the Australian Federal government has employed a number of policy strategies and discursive approaches to family and workplace initiatives. This nexus was identified by Probert (2002) as offering a potential opportunity for women to advance claims for gender equality in the workplace. In 2002, the Prime Minister identified the work–family issue as ‘a barbecue stopper debate’ for the nation.