The modern Australian family looks very different to how it did twenty years ago. Most households now have two fulltime incomes. Homes are made up of two bathrooms not one. Under the one roof we have an average of four televisions and four mobile phones. And holidays are taken in Bali instead of the Gold Coast.
This social change has had a prosperity impact on the Australian lifestyle. As part of a report I have been developing, I have been investigating how cultural change and advancements in technology have helped many of us pursue the ‘great Aussie way of life’. And how it will continue to do this, for the better.
Towards a Connected Australia provides a unique insight into how technology advancements will continue to benefit all Australians. I look at how it will benefit Australian women and how the newest and most connected generation of women will use innovations such as universal access to fast broadband to re-arrange the traditional work-rest-play lifestyle model to better suit their lifestyle needs.
Of course the ‘role’ of women has dramatically changed over the years with households no longer only consisting of the traditional nuclear family – mum, dad and kids. There is a wide array of new arrangements including multi-generations families, one-parent households, same sex couple households and blended-family households. The majority of these households have two incomes increasing the spending power in homes. The fastest growing household is the dual income households with no children (DINKS) or couples in an extended state of single-dom before having children.
Sharing the load
With most households requiring two incomes, and therefore both parents working outside of the home, it will ultimately change the way households operate. I believe we are trending towards a sharing environment, for example the mother might do the school run in the morning, however their father does the afternoon. Both have an equal role in the household and there will be a greater shift to share responsibilities.
Companies will need to cater to this change and allow more flexibility around working hours and the working week. If work is increasingly measured by deliverables then what does it matter if that deliverable is delivered over three bursts of work completed over 24 hours?
Mind over muscle
With technology advancements, the move towards ‘mind jobs’ from ‘muscle jobs’ has resulted in a profound shift in participation in the Australian workforce by women from 44% in 1978 to 59% in 2015. Women are leaning towards ‘mind jobs’ – these are knowledge workers mainly in the finance, health, education and business management sectors.
Currently, these knowledge jobs are CBD focused. As I’ve detailed in the report, I believe this will rapidly change with opportunities technology and the internet creates. With all Australian homes having access to fast broadband by 2020, we will be able to work remotely through a single communications hub or a series of workspaces created in our homes.
Location location location
The Australian penchant for lifestyle locations such as sea-change and tree change might be enhanced as more and more people can operate via the Internet from wherever they choose to live. Currently there are eight million people living outside Australian capital cities, this is expected to grow to 10 million in 2030.
Maree Shepherd recently moved to Kiama from Sydney confident that the National Boradband Network (NBN) would enable her to continue her role as Business Manager of the consulting business Shepherd & Shepherd. “Having access to fast broadband has already made an enormous difference to my way of life as well as the way the business is run. It has enabled me to escape the hustle and bustle of city life by providing me with a new sea-change in beautiful Kiama. One of the benefits is that by using programs such as Skype and a landline phone that operates over a fibre connection, I’m even paying less for my phone calls than before I switched to the NBN. I believe as more of our supplier network make the switch, Shepherd and Shepherd will be able to operate more of our day-to-day business operations from home, using tele-conferencing instead of travelling.”
Whilst some of us won’t go as far as moving out of the capital cities, it does provide far more flexibility for us to choose the lifestyle option through other ways. For example, mothers might get up and get the kids to school, tele-conference into a meeting and head into the office for the afternoon. She may split her working hours from 9am – 11pm rather than 9am-5pm but delivering equal if not more for their employer.
Throughout drafting the report, it became more apparent how the advancements in technology is dramatically changing what Australia looks like. Technology has affected the lives of women and will continue to help drive the equal opportunity movement forward. Through technology like the NBN creating greater flexibility, Australians can choose where they want to live resulting in a better lifestyle and have more opportunity to balance their responsibilities at work and home.
*Towards a Connected Australia was developed in april 2015 in association with nbn, the company behind the National Broadband Network.