Key Factors
- Half-time employment amongst ladies dropped by 3.2 share factors to 29.7 per cent during the last 5 years.
- The variety of ladies with full-time jobs elevated from 40.2 per cent to 42.5 per cent in the identical interval.
- Researchers stated versatile working – together with distant, hybrid, and tailor-made hours – is a precedence for a lot of ladies.
The share of girls working part-time is shrinking as extra go for made mainstream within the pandemic.
The pressured working-from-home experiment caused by COVID-19 lockdowns normalised and different methods of working coveted by all however particularly these looking for flexibility to stability caring tasks.
Office Gender Equality Company and Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre’s analysis suggests a broader understanding of flexibility past part-time is creating alternatives for improved gender fairness.
Alan Duncan, report co-author, stated part-time employment was nonetheless a worthwhile different for these balancing caring tasks and different pursuits however there have been downsides.
It may end in long-term financial drawback, together with decrease lifetime earnings and lowered retirement financial savings, Duncan stated throughout a web-based report launch.
“Ladies make up three-quarters of the full part-time workforce, and this makes part-time work a gendered challenge,” he stated.
Half-time employment amongst ladies dropped by 3.2 share factors to 29.7 per cent during the last 5 years.
In the identical interval, the share of girls formally categorised as having full-time jobs elevated from 40.2 per cent to 42.5 per cent, according to a rising prevalence of distant and different non-traditional versatile work.
The pandemic “broke the again” of unfavorable perceptions round versatile and non-traditional work as employers had been pressured to recognise organisation efficiency was little compromised, Duncan stated.
But “prehistoric” views continued, together with the notion that flexibility meant staff had been paid “full whack” for fewer hours.
“That is actually not mindset,” he stated.
A deal with work outcomes fairly than hours within the workplace was really useful to enhance job design and promote inclusivity.
Half-time and versatile work remained rarer at administration stage, Monday’s report revealed.
Conscious Tremendous chief of employees Katrina McPhee stated the stress of “all the time needing to be on” was a deterrent to ladies balancing care tasks and different calls for.
“Doubtlessly we have to rethink how that works from a workload perspective,” she stated on the report launch.
Company chief Mary Wooldridge stated the report’s findings bolstered the necessity to design jobs for inclusivity and ditch the “full-time mindset”.
“Flexibility stigma” remained an issue, with promotion charges dropping off steeply for part-time staff exterior of administration.
“By embracing versatile work practices and addressing the challenges related to part-time employment, employers create a extra equitable and supportive work surroundings for all staff,” she stated.
The report’s key suggestions included normalising versatile work and monitoring profession development to identify promotion cliffs.
