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Contingent Work and Gender in Australia: Evidence from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Richard Hall ,
Bill Harley  and
Gillian Whitehouse
Richard Hall
Affiliation:
The Department of Management at the University of Melbourne
Bill Harley
Affiliation:
The Department of Management at the University of Melbourne
Gillian Whitehouse
Affiliation:
Department of Government at the University of Queensland
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Abstract

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The decreasing prevalence of the standard model of employment embodied by the ‘typical male full-time employee on a permanent contract’ can be seen both as risking the erosion of hard won labour rights and as offering the potential for a more flexible, less ‘male’ model. This paper addresses some of the ways in which this tension is played out, drawing on data from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations (AWIRS95) Employee Survey to examine the implications for women workers of recent trends in contingent employment in Australia. Our analysis suggests that the growth in contingent employment in Australia has had little positive impact on women’s experience of work. We conclude that if the disadvantage faced by women in irregular employment is to be countered, greater regulation of such employment is required. However, key features of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 make the regulation of the conditions of contingent employment even more difficult to achieve than in the past. The result of current policy settings is likely to be the further institutionalisation of women’s disadvantage at work and in the labour market.

Type
Symposium on Dimensions of Precarious Employment
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , June 1998 , pp. 55 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1998

Footnotes

*

Authors’ names are listed alphabetically. Each made an equal contribution to the paper.

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