The swings and roundabouts of part-time work
posted Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Is part time work the answer to WoLFi?
The theme of National Families Week 2008 in Australia is ‘work and family – getting the balance right’. Although this is pleasing – I am concerned about the probability of such a goal being achieved. It’s not just that I think balance is the the wrong word, but it the way we are trying to get there. Research suggests that one way in which mothers, mostly, try to achieve balance is by working part time. Australia has a very high proportion of women in paid work, who work part-time, with 51.5 per cent compared to the OECD average of 33 per cent (OECD 2007). We are second after the Netherlands with part time workers, mostly women.
A report on the ’snap-shot of family life’ by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found that 60 per cent of mothers work part time, compared to 1 per cent of fathers. Much research suggests part-time work, especially in Australia, has been a common ‘choice’ mothers use to reconcile the competing demands of paid work and family responsibilities. As many readers know I use the word choice tentatively, because I am not sure how many mothers actually get to make genuine choices in a country where the male breadwinner model is still dominant.
So I really wonder if part-time work really achieves its aim of creating better work life family balance or interconnectivity ? Or does it just free mothers up to do more unpaid work (cleaning, cooking, taxi-ing etc). Also there are also workplace penalties (lesser pay, conditions, professional development etc) that come with part-time or casual positions. I am curious to know about the major swings and roundabouts, ups and downs, of your part-time work experiences as a working mother?
Does part-time work achieve the aim of creating better work life family balance or interconnectivity?
It can, but not it’s usually currently done, for just the reasons you cite. Part-time work frees up women to do more “second shift” unpaid work during the day, so in that way it helps promote balance, but in the US, part-time work comes at a huge cost. When I worked part-time, I paid part of the cost of my own health insurance and would have had to pay all of my daughter’s; as a full-time employee, I get both policies completely paid for. I have access to retirement saving that I didn’t have before. I also get disability and life insurance which was not available to me as a part-timer, and I have paid sick leave, which I also didn’t have. Many of those issues don’t apply – or apply differently – in Australia, where everyone has health insurance (and I don’t know about disability insurance or sick leave) but in the US part-time work carries both a stigma (“you’re not really serious about your career”) and a financial cost.
Jay said this on October 12th, 2008 at 9:54 am
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It’s Carnival Time! « Penguin unearthed said this on November 4th, 2008 at 7:48 pm