Project overview
Women-work-care is the working title of the Australian Research Council Linkage grant: Industrial Relations, Gender Equity and Work/Family Balance: Assessing the Impact of Changing Law and Practice in Queensland (LP0775131). The project is designed to assess the impact of changing industrial relations law and practice on gender equity and work/family balance in Queensland. It seeks enhanced understanding of the complex relationships between legislative change, industrial relations frameworks, business adaptations and equity outcomes for employees; and the way these relationships might vary across sectors and regions.
In particular, the research focuses on two ‘care work’ occupations – child care workers and dental assistants. These are female-dominated and relatively low-paid occupations which are highly dependent on the industrial relations framework for pay increases and work/family entitlements, and both have been the subject of an equal remuneration determination by the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission under the Industrial Relations Act 1999 equal remuneration provisions, applying Queensland's Equal Remuneration Principle established in 2002. The project seeks to observe the impact of these and other interventions on these occupational groups over a sustained period, assessing the implications of subsequent industrial relations changes in the federal sphere, with particular focus on the impact of Fair Work Australia and its associated changes to employment entitlements and the award system.
The project aims to identify effective strategies to enhance gender equity in employment, with particular focus on remuneration and work/family balance in ‘care work’ occupations. It will extend the evidence-base to inform policy making in areas of employment quality and labour force attachment over the life course.
Research Team
Chief Investigators Gillian Whitehouse, Janeen Baxter (University of Queensland)
Partner Steering Committee members Marjolein Broers, Gina Meibusch (Queensland Government's Office of Fair and Safe Work Queensland); Kylie Stephen, Nusch Herman (Queensland Government's Office for Women)
Contributing researchers
Tricia Rooney (Queensland Government's Office of Fair and Safe Work Queensland); Jenny Chesters, Julie Connolly, Ellyse Fenton and Brona Farrelly (University of Queensland).
Funding
The project is funded through the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Grant scheme, with support from the ARC and industry partners the Queensland Government's Office of Fair and Safe Work Queensland and Queensland Office for Women.
Total cash funding from the ARC and industry partners is $233,000, while the industry partners also provide $98,000 in in-kind support for the project.
Research Design and Findings
Stage 1: Survey of childcare workers and dental assistants (2009)
The survey of child care workers and dental assistants in Queensland was designed to provide baseline information on the employment conditions and characteristics of workers in these ‘care work’ occupations in order to enable an assessment of the impact of previous interventions, including the Queensland pay equity decisions, and employees’ perceptions of needs.
The Employee Survey Report outlines the design of the survey, including the sampling strategy, implementation and return rates, and provides a summary of basic statistics drawn from the sample. The questionnaires (Child Care Workers Questionnaire and Dental Assistants Questionnaire) provide the full text of the questions asked.
Stage 2: Interviews with industry group representatives and workplace managers (2010)
This stage of the project comprised interviews conducted in 2010 with seven industry group representatives and 40 workplace managers. The goal was to examine the role these actors played in linking the regulatory framework with the conditions and experiences of employees: industry and professional groups by interpreting the regulatory environment and providing advice to members on practice; managers by interpreting requirements and implementing policies and procedures in ways that enable them to run workplaces effectively. Additional interviews with industry group and union representatives were conducted in 2011 to further update information in the context of Modern Awards.
The
Interviews Report provides detail on the interviews conducted in 2010, outlining the research design and methods used in this phase of the research, and providing a summary of the main findings of the analysis for Industry Group Representatives, Dental Practice Managers and Childcare Centre Directors. It also includes the interview schedules as an Appendix.
Stage 3: Workplace case studies (2011)
Five workplaces in each industry were selected as case studies to follow up on issues raised in Stages 1 and 2 of the project. The workplace case studies involved follow-up interviews with workplace managers and interviews with childcare workers and dental assistants at the selected sites. A final report from the project, including summaries of the Stage 3 findings will be released in early 2012.
Symposium
The first Women-Work-Care Symposium was hosted by the Queensland Government's Office for Women and Office of Fair and Safe Work Queensland in conjunction with the University of Queensland on Tuesday 24 November, 2009. Presentations included:
The symposium also included a panel discussion on recent government inquiries and legislative changes relevant to the project (these included the House of Representatives Inquiry into Pay Equity and Associated Issues related to Increasing Female Participation in the Workforce, the Review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 and the recently adopted National Employment Standards with particular focus on the ‘Right to Request’).
A second symposium, presenting findings from all stages of the research, will take place in early 2012.
Publications and presentations
Journal articles
Chesters, J. and J. Baxter (2011) 'Prisoners of love: job satisfaction in care work', Australian Journal of Social Issues, Vol 46, No1, Autumn 2011.
Whitehouse, G and T. Rooney (2007) “The Queensland dental assistants’ equal remuneration case: Advancing gender pay equity at state level?” Labour and Industry 18(2): 85-104.
Book chapters
Campbell, I., G. Whitehouse and J. Baxter (2009) ‘Australia: casual employment, part-time employment and the resilience of the male-breadwinner model’. In L. Vosko, M. Macdonald and I. Campbell, eds, Gender and Contours of Precarious Employment, London, Routledge, pp60-75.
Whitehouse, G. and T. Rooney (in press) ‘Approaches to gender-based undervaluation in Australian industrial tribunals: lessons from recent childcare cases’. In M. Baird, K. Hancock and J. Isaac, eds, Work and Employment Relations: an Era of Change, Sydney, The Federation Press.
Conference papers (published in proceedings)
Whitehouse, G., J. Connolly, T. Rooney and E.Fenton (2011) ‘Working-time insecurity and flexibility in permanent part-time employment: patterns in Queensland childcare’. Non-refereed proceedings of 25th conference of the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ), New Zealand Work and Labour Market Institute, AUT University, AIRAANZ: Auckland.
Whitehouse, G., J. Connolly and T. Rooney (2011) ‘Valuing care: barriers to the redress of undervaluation in child care’. Proceedings of the 4th International Community, Work and Family Conference, Tampere, Finland.
Presentations
Baxter, J. M. Western, G. Whitehouse & I. Campbell (2007) ‘Indicators of precariousness: some examples from Australian datasets’. Paper presented at Comparative Perspectives on Precarious Employment: Developing Common Understandings across Space, Scale and Social Location, York University, Toronto, November.
Baxter, J. and J. Chesters (2009) ‘Job Satisfaction in the Australian Workforce: Is Care Work Different?’ Paper presented at Women-Work-Care, a forum hosted by Queensland Office for Women, 24 November.
Baxter, J. and C. Chesters (2010) ‘Perceptions of Work/Life Balance: How effective are family friendly policies?’ Paper presented at the Australian Institute for Family Studies conference, Melbourne, 7-9 July.
Chesters, J. and J. Baxter (2009)‘A Means to an End or an End in Itself? Job Satisfaction in the Australian Workforce’. Paper presented at The Australian Sociological Association annual conference, ANU Canberra 1-4th December.
Connolly, J., T. Rooney and G. Whitehouse (2011) ‘Tracking pay equity: the impact of regulatory change on the dissemination and sustainability of equal remuneration decisions’. Paper presented at Women, Work and Collectivism Symposium, University of Sydney, 11 May.
Rooney, T. and G. Whitehouse (2008) ‘Gender pay equity and the ‘unification’ of Australian industrial relations’. Paper presented at the Australian Political Studies Association annual conference, Brisbane, July 6-9.
Rooney, T. and G. Whitehouse (2009) ‘Tracking the Impact of Queensland’s Undervaluation cases: Childcare Workers and Dental Assistants in 2009’.Paper presented at History of Labour Relations in Queensland 1859-2009, a Q150 conference hosted by the Office of Fair and Safe Work Queensland, 11 December. [Also presented at:
(i) Women-Work-Care, a forum hosted by Queensland Office for Women, 24 November 2009;
(ii) Pay Equity - a Seminar hosted by the Women and Work Research Group, University of Sydney, 18 December 2009.]
Whitehouse, G. and T. Rooney (2009) ‘The value of caring: reviewing the undervaluation of child care work’. Paper presented at Women’s Work, Women’s Worth: Contemporary Issues, Work, Organisation and Well-Being Centre, Griffith University, 15 October.
Whitehouse, G. (2010) ‘Care work, working-time insecurity and work/family support’. Paper presented at Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia Symposium Family Fortunes and the Global Financial Crisis, Canberra, November.
Whitehouse, G. (2011) ‘Investigating regional variation in the incidence and management of long hours permanent part-time employment in Queensland childcare’. Paper presented at Expert Workshop, Employment Regulation and Work-Life-Community: Taking a Place/Space Perspective, RMIT, Melbourne 24 March.
Whitehouse, G. and T. Rooney (2011) ‘Beyond comparable worth? Australian approaches to valuing care’. Paper presented at a University of Sydney workshop in honour of Professor Russell Lansbury, Sydney, 30 March- 1 April.
