A century ago, philosopher Betrand Russel and economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2020, technological, flexible and productivity advancements would mean that we could all work as little as three or four hours a day.
By 2020, these advances had arrived but instead, many of us work multiple jobs, are on-call 24/7 and are totally burned out.
And women (likely excluded from Russel and Keynes prognostications) work even more – combining paid work with unpaid care.
It is fitting that this year’s International Women’s Day theme is Changing Climates: Equality today for a sustainable tomorrow. Sustainability is not just about the natural environment. We also need to see huge changes in our home and work environments if we are ever going to see sustained gender equality.
We know that we are more likely to achieve gender equality if more women participate in paid work. Equity Economics has modelled the potential economic impact of lifting female workforce participation. If Australia could lift female participation to that of males, it would increase GDP by 8.7 per cent or $353 billion by 2050.
But we also know that lifting female participation rates will only occur once we see improved childcare access and affordability, changes to the tax system and better access to flexible work arrangements.
It seemed for a minute that the pandemic may have highlighted the benefits of flexible work for everyone, but anecdotally, it appears these policies are quickly being rolled back, with many workplaces already demanding a return to the office.
While much has been written about the benefits of flexible work for those with caring responsibilities (primarily women), we need to have a broader conversation about employers offering greater flexibility to everyone.
Evidence shows that flexible work is good for employees and employers. One study found employees are happiest when they can choose when, where and how they work, while employers are more like to retain a globally diverse, sustainable workforce if they offer flexible work arrangements.
Yet we are still culturally opposed to flexible work. Research shows that women who use flexible work more than men face lower pay and other career penalties. In Australia, around 60 per cent of women are employed part-time and in insecure casual work, while only 33 per cent of men are.
In Australia flexible work is still seen as special and extraordinary in so many workplaces – and even then, as something just for working mums.
Women are still seen to ‘fit in’ work around caring responsibilities, particularly for young children. A recent ABC story on the impact of COVID-19 on female workers showed several vignettes of women combining work and family. The story highlights women as being ‘lucky’ they could return to work or study after having children because their husbands have ‘stepped up’ and ‘helped out’ around the house. It is unlikely you would ever read an article portraying women as ‘helping out’ around the house or ‘stepping up’ so that fathers could return to work following the birth of a child.
These norms prevail despite the available evidence. There are more and more women who are primary breadwinners. And men are, of course, more than capable of looking after children. But analysis continues to show that Australian women lag in workforce participation compared to equivalent economies – and behind men – due to the need to manage childcare.
While the number of fathers undertaking flexible work is increasing, social norms often discourage men from taking time off work or using flexible work arrangements to share the caring load.
Australian research investigating flexible working arrangements revealed a strong link between masculine identity and paid work and found this impacted decisions regarding work, family and the uptake of flexible work. According to the OECD Family Database, less than one in every 100 recipients of paid parental leave in Australia is male. Only 2 per cent of Australian organisations currently have any goals for improving male participation in flexible work.
In other words, these norms mean it is still mums who fit work around caring, rather that dads. And in so many cases, work makes no attempt to fit around the working parent.
So long as flexibility is seen as ‘innovative’ and not something we need to achieve gender equality and healthy workplaces, social norms will not change.
To create a climate of change, we need flexibility to be the new norm, not to be seen as a special case. We need ‘working dads’ to be just as common as ‘working mums’.