Sue Olney
Care-giving can be a rich and complex experience that is both rewarding and challenging. Enrico Pfeifer (@EnricoPfeifer1), a PhD Candidate at the University College London, knows this first-hand. Today, he explores his doctoral research on the impact that care-giving can have on people’s health, and how we can support care-givers to stay healthy.
Read MoreAshlea Coen (@ashlea_coen) analyses LinkedIn’s “career break” interaction design and critiques how the language points to the devaluing of caring as a job in society. Ashlea is a researcher focused on the intersection of design, technology and sociology.
Read MoreOur care industries are vital to a healthy, functioning economy. In today’s analysis, Kristine Ziwica (@KZiwica), a journalist with 20 years experience working in Australia, the United States and the UK on human rights and gender equality campaigns, argues that we need to invest in our people and place care at the centre of the Australian economy.
Read MoreWith the recent release of the Intergenerational Report, questions over how a dropping fertility rate will effect an ageing population have come to the fore. In today’s analysis, Miranda Stewart (@AusTaxProf) of University of Melbourne (@MelbLawSchool) and ANU (@ANUCrawford), explains how the lack of an economic accounting of care work, particularly of children, is creating myopia in government planning systems, and could be remedied if care work was properly valued as a national asset. This analysis is a summary of a policy brief put out by the Melbourne School of Government entitled Tax & the Fertility Freefall: Children, Care & the Intergenerational Report.
Read MoreOne in ten Australians provide care for a loved one, sustaining families and saving governments huge sums on care services. Associate Professor Myra Hamilton explains why COVID-19 has increased the pressure for Australia’s many unpaid carers and the impact this is having.
Read MoreAcross Australia, most families are sheltering at home. In today’s analysis, Elizabeth Hill (@ElizabethHill00), of University of Sydney (@SydneyUni) and the Australian Work and Family Policy Roundtable, explains how that is differentially impacting women and how this moment in time can strengthen our social norms and economy going forward.
Read MoreFor Anti-Poverty Week, we are focussing on older women’s disadvantage, accumulated across a lifetime. An earlier post explored how older women are now the largest demographic reliant on the Newstart Allowance, which is pushing many into crisis. In today’s post, “Lorraine”[1] generously shares her story, in her own words. Lorraine is 70 years old, currently living in private rental accommodation. She receives a full age pension and commonwealth rent assistance while also working part-time. Her story contains many of the barriers and bumps that all women face – relationship breakdown, single parenting, the need to reskill, relocation for jobs, being called upon to help with caring for ageing parents or grandbabies, and that ever-present sexually-transmitted debt. Lorraine was one of several peer researchers on Per Capita’s (@PerCapita) recent report on innovative solutions for housing precarity for older women. We are thankful to her for allowing us to share her story here.
Read MoreAustralian policymakers will need to take critical action in response to the care crisis revealed by coverage of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and the lead up to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Laura Davy (@LauraKDavy) from the Public Service Research Group, UNSW Canberra, discusses how feminist ethics and feminist economics can inform workforce investment strategies into the future.
Read MoreThe third iteration of the global report The State of the World’s Fathers was launched on 16 June, at the Women Deliver Global Conference in Vancouver, Canada. The bi-annual report highlights progress and gaps for equalising care in 7 OECD countries, as well as analysis from five countries in the Global South. The report importantly also tracks changes in attitudes and social norms. Today’s analysis provides a summary of the report, an initiative of the MenCare Campaign (@MenCareGlobal), which is led by Promundo (@Promundo-US). Australia is in dire need of more progressive policies that enable men to take an active role in parenting and caring; this global overview provides important insights for how it can be done well.
Read MoreWith the outcome of the recent federal election, the Coalition’s ‘pre-employment’ program known as ParentsNext looks set to continue indefinitely. While a recent Senate Inquiry found the program to be deeply flawed and often harmful to participants, the program is not without its defenders. In today’s piece, Ella Buckland (@EllaNBuckland), who has become a strong advocate for women who are enrolled and is leading a petition to have the program made voluntary, writes about her own experiences and those of other mothers who are on the program in an effort to set the record straight on the program’s merits.
Read MoreThe Coalition government has had a long-term focus on moving women into paid employment through increasing Welfare to Work requirements and keeping the Newstart Allowance artificially low. However, many women are unable to participate in employment due to caring duties. For some women this career break is a temporary one as children age and become less dependent, but others are looking after family members or others who have a disability or a chronic condition. In today’s piece, Melanie Zeppel (@MelanieZeppel) of GenIMPACT at Macquarie University shares findings from co-authored research on the economic analysis of the cost of caring, which overwhelmingly impacts on women.
Read MoreIt can be argued that time is the crucial element in securing gender equality. Women work longer hours than men, but most of these hours are unpaid. Meanwhile, men spend increasingly long hours at work, resulting in promotions and pay rises unrelated to productivity or competence. In today’s federal election series, Sara Charlesworth of RMIT (@RMITCPOW) shares an overview of the Australian Work + Family Roundtable’s election benchmarks, which provides an evidence-based framework for addressing the root causes of inequalities.
Read MoreFew Australians experience more pain from government policy than Indigenous populations, and too often it is Indigenous women who bear the brunt. In today’s federal election piece, Zoe Staines (@Zoettes) of The University of Queensland places a gender lens over the troubling Welfare to Work remote community incarnation known as the Community Development Programme, and explains how it differentially disadvantages women.
Read MoreChildcare policy is always fraught, because so many people want it to be better, but everyone has their own ideas about what is needed. Yarrow Andrew, who worked for 15 years in long day childcare as an educator, before beginning a research career investigating early childhood education gives us some ideas about how to reform the sector.
Read MoreAs the Royal Commission into Aged Care begins investigating the failures of the residential aged care sector, it is important such a review also considers the broader socio-political factors that have contributed to this crisis.
Read MoreWill it soon be possible to outsource our caring responsibilities for ourselves, our children and our parents to robots? Catherine Smith and Helen Dickinson ask what the human rights, privacy, equity and practical implications for care would be in a tech-dominated future.
Read MoreWomen provide the lion’s share of unpaid work. In Australia, it is estimated that women spend an average of 64% of their ‘work’ time in an unpaid capacity, while for men the average is much lower, at 36%. In today’s analysis, Amy Webster of Women’s Health Victoria (@WHVictoria) provides a summary of how unpaid care negatively impacts on women, and how multiple identities, including single parent status, having a disability, and women from CALD backgrounds, add complexity to care work. This analysis is a summary of the recently-released Spotlight on Women and unpaid care.
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