Yesterday’s labour force data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimates 5.7 million Australian women were either employed or looking for work.
The ABS data says the increase of women’s participation rate in Australia’s workplace has slowed in the past decade compared to the previous decade, after increasing since 1978.
The participation rate, which describes numbers of people in work or looking for work, decreased for men in the same period.
The labour force estimates from the ABS are based on on the Australian Labour Force Survey.
Workplace Gender Equality Agency spokesperson Yolanda Beattie said the underemployment rate was more important, Ms Beattie said.
Underemployment describes people who do work but want to work more.
Data from the ABS in February said underemployment for males and females (between 20 and 74 years old) reached the highest point in 2013-14 compared to anytime during the previous decade.
Yet, the underemployment rate for females was higher than men, with the widest gap in the 20-24 age group.
A long term trend seen in yesterday's ABS data is women taking a smaller share of part time work and a larger portion of available full time work.
Ms Beattie said part of the issue that faced women who wanted to work more was the expectation that women would be primary carers of children and men would work to provide for their families.
Often, the expectation and pressure for men to remain at work was strong, Ms Beattie said.
She said inflexible working arrangements meant too often one partner would work fulltime while another would become a primary carer, despite having a career they loved.
“So many women are presented with a choice of, ‘have a career or have a family’,” Ms Beattie said.
Ms Beattie suggested a solution might be more flexible working arrangements that allow parents to share the caring role.
“Employers who want to get the best out of their people have to look at… job redesign and work redesign,” she said.
“Let’s create a model where men and women can be equal carers.”
Productivity was not proportional to long working hours, Ms Beattie said.
“We should be measuring people on outcomes,” she said.
Ms Beattie was not saying all carers should share the role and women who wanted to care for their children should be able to.
“That’s fantastic if that’s the choice that they’re making,” she said.
“That’s the really important part about feminism. It’s about choice.”
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