We have great educations. We have sponsors. We have mentors. We have great intentions from leaders of major organisations. We have governments continually polishing their shiny policies for women’s workforce participation. We even have the Sheryl Sandberg manifesto explaining just how to ‘lean in’.
But is the answer for what women really need for better opportunities at work all about more equality at home?
According to author and chief executive of the Energy Project Tony Schwartz, men simply don’t fully get that it’s not a level playing field in the world of business. And that’s not because women aren’t accessing the same opportunities at the pointy end of leadership.
Having spoken with plenty of male and female business leaders, he believes the issue of “overload, exhaustion and burnout” is a constant topic of conversation for both genders. However, he believes men face nowhere near the level of demand at home that women do.
He writes in the New York Times that the stats tell the story. Women do twice as much as men in America. The amount of actually rises with the more qualifications she gets. Meanwhile, women get less sleep than men and are interrupt their sleep in order assist with caring duties.
This is as true in Australia as it is in America. Women are doing 16 hours housework a week, more than double the amount of men, according to the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. This is despite the fact women are increasingly becoming the ‘breadwinners’ in Australian households. Just last week the World Economic Forum reported Australia women are spending 311 minutes on unpaid work each day — including housework, caring responsibilities and volunteering. just 171.6 minutes on such work.
This means that every day, women have less hours to put into their careers. That may or may not change the amount of hours women spend at work, but it could limit time women spend socialising in their own office, attending industry events and networking opportunities, and simply staying back for an hour here and there to spend some time chatting with the boss.
It also means women have less time, energy and flexibility to look after themselves — which Schwartz believes is a core challenge for business and something employers should seek to improve by offering more workplace flexibility and opportunities to focus on the ‘value they create’ rather than the work they do.
Schwartz argues employers should do more to support their female employees and all employees, noting the value not only of having healthy, energised employees, but also in supporting female leadership talent.
But being an employer, the employer can only help with the paid work women do.
When you think about it, shifting the balance between men and women when it comes to domestic duties should be simpler than steering an entire organisation in a new direction. Still, it’s not. Cultural norms and learned behaviours are difficult to break, especially when the current system works conveniently in favour of those already in power.
Even couples with the greatest intentions to share the bulk of the domestic duties can see such intentions for equality at home come undone. When it comes to caring responsibilities, behavioural patterns are often creating while one partner is taking parental leave — when managing the cooking, cleaning and washing is not only necessary, but provides some structure around the uncertainty of caring for a new child. Such work becomes habit, and such habits continue when she (and it’s usually a she) returns to work.
A great and supportive life partner is excellent for your career. On Women’s Agenda, we’ve often heard from powerful female leaders with partners at home who help with the bulk of the domestic and caring responsibilities. But as the data outlined above reveals, this is the exception rather than the norm. For every woman with a supportive partner there’s at least one with a seriously unhelpful one. There are generations of inbuilt ways of working and thinking that put women at the top of the list when it comes to taking care of everything that doesn’t actually involve getting paid.
Employers could do much more to encourage and promote workplace flexibility that gives all employees the ability to control how they’re working and ultimately take back time for themselves.
But the best workplace gender equality initiatives actually happen at home.