Every day, Australian women contribute the majority of the routine housework in Australia. And every day Australian women working full time earn an average 18.6% less than their male counterparts.
It certainly seems that when it comes to both paid and unpaid work, women have well and truly drawn the short straw.
These statistics happen despite modern advances. A substantial rise in women’s workforce participation in recent decades hasn’t resulted in women spending a significantly less time on domestic duties — the opposite has happened, according to ABS data. New legislation designed to prevent gender discrimination and support new parents hasn’t closed the pay gap — it’s now at its largest in 20 years. Great innovations in household appliances (microwaves, dishwashers, washing machines etc) that were supposed to free women from monotonous household tasks, haven’t resulted in a significant amount of extra leisure time, as was once predicted.
While men are contributing more to household work than they were decades ago, the time difference between what men and women do at home remains significant, especially when you factor in shopping, volunteering and caring for household members. Indeed in 2014, the World Economic Forum estimated Australian women spend an average 311 minutes on unpaid work a day compared with 172 minutes for men.
It seems there are some great inefficiencies occurring in our homes, just as there are within the broader workforce. And both genders are expending a significant amount of time on ‘home production’ that’s not actually recognised in any national accounts or in much government policy making.
So what if we genuinely attempted to reduce these inefficiencies at home? What if we addressed the gender pay gap not from the point of view of incentivising women to do more, but rather from the position of incentivising men to increase the minutes and hours they contribute at home?
To an extent, this is what’s being argued in a new US paper, The Determinants of Housework, which suggests workplace inequality policies should consider broader inefficiencies in ‘home production’.
The paper, authored by VCU professor of economics Leslie Stratton, draws on studies that show women who take on the bulk of the domestic duties are more likely to earn lower wages, and can quickly be incentivised against participating in the workforce. It’s hard to find much satisfaction in paid work if the rest of your available time is spent in unpaid work — and it’s especially difficult to see the point if income tax, a gender pay gap and expensive childcare fees are significantly eating into what you’re actually earning.
Stratton argues that easing the burden of household work on women could ultimately boost broader workforce participation and productivity. She believes a number of policies could support this, especially addressing sales and income taxes to better incentivise both men and women to realise the benefits of equally splitting the household duties (or sourcing other measures to help) in order to spend a more equitably amount of time in paid activities.
Other options she suggests are non-gendered education program that equip children with the skills necessary to maintain a home and discourage gender-based assumptions on who should do what.
We regularly quote Australia’s gender pay gap on Women’s Agenda, especially as it’s updated according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data. We see it as something that should be directly targeted in order to boost Australian productivity. The gender pay gap is a major limitation on the accumulation of wealth for women — ultimately impacting women’s economic security in retirement, and therefore reliance on government benefits and services later on. The gender pay gap, it could be argued, is also keeping some women out of the workforce altogether.
It’s shocking that in 2015, Australia’s gender pay gap is not getting any smaller but has actually just hit its largest point in its 20-year recorded history, 18.6%.
It’s also incredible that in 2015 women are still spending 139 more minutes than men on daily household work.
These figures are intrinsically linked. It’ll be difficult to narrow one without narrowing the other.