scholarly journals Special working arrangements to allow for care responsibilities in Australia: availability, usage and barriers

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeromey Temple ◽  
Briony Dow ◽  
Marian Baird

Background  Population ageing is projected to reduce labour force growth and aggregate labour force participation, whilst increasing demand for informal carers. Increasing the labour force participation of Australians who face barriers to employment (including carers) is part of the solution to labour market pressures occurring due to demographic change and may improve the financial wellbeing of carers. Aims  To examine the availability, usage and barriers to accessing Special Working Arrangements (SWA) to provide care while employed in Australia. Data and methods  The 2015 ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers was used to measure the prevalence of the availability, usage and barriers to SWA to care stratified by carer status and gender. Results  About 94% of workers reported access to at least one type of SWA (n=25,094). Of this group, about 22% have used SWA to care in the last 6 months. The proportions using SWA to care were highest among primary carers (64%) followed by other carers (43%) and non-carers (19%). Of those who have used SWA, about 15% wanted to use additional SWA to care in the previous 6 months, but faced barriers in doing so, with higher proportions of primary carers (24.6%) and other carers (21.8%) reporting barriers. The main barriers faced by employed carers included insufficient paid leave and/or work commitments. Conclusions  A range of paid and unpaid arrangements are necessary for carers to combine paid work with their caregiving responsibilities. Labour market legislation and workplace policies should be strengthened to reduce barriers to take up of SWA.

Author(s):  
Giovanni Razzu

Although the movement towards gender equality in the labour market has slowed in recent decades, a long-term view over the 20th century shows the significant narrowing of the gender employment gap in the UK, a result of the increases in women’s labour force participation and employment combined with falling attachment to the labour force among men. It is too early to assess with precision the extent to which these patterns will be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic but emerging evidence and informed speculation do suggest that there will be important distributional consequences. Various studies, produced at an unprecedented rate, are pointing out that the effects of Covid-19 are not felt equally across the population; on the contrary labour market inequalities appear to be growing in some dimensions and there are reasons to believe that they will grow more substantially in the medium term.


2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Euwals ◽  
Maurice Hogerbrugge ◽  
Adri den Ouden

The growth of part-time employment: supply and demand The growth of part-time employment: supply and demand The Dutch labour market shows a high part-time employment rate, and the rate continues to grow at a pace faster than in other OECD countries. The increase in labour force participation of women plays an important role. The contribution of men to part-time employment is growing but stays behind that of women. The shift between sectors of industry, from manufacturing to services, contributes to the growth of part-time employment. We discuss several reasons for firms to hire part-time employees. We investigate the importance of factors of supply and demand by means of a regression analysis at the sectoral level of industry. We find that the increasing demand for flexible labour contributes to the growth of part-time employment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4I-II) ◽  
pp. 521-540
Author(s):  
Kanwal Zahra ◽  
Tasneem Zafar ◽  
Mahmood Khalid

Labour has always been considered as major source of income and livelihood, and the labour market of Pakistan which provides an important source to alleviate poverty and raise the standard of living. The characteristics of labour i.e. age, gender, location, caste and religion makes labour market highly segmented. And these factors often make buyer bias which indeed causes a discrimination and exclusion in labour market. This study tries to investigate the issue of social exclusion which has been faced by marginalised class in labour force participation. While analysing trends of marginalised labour force participation, the role of social networks also take into account. The marginalised labour force has been selected based on religion and gender (minorities, women, transgender) which is the part of formal and informal labour market of the city Lahore, Pakistan. The study use logit modelling to analyse the role of social exclusion and other determinants in labour force participation of marginalised class and also evaluate the role of labour force participation in the poverty status of marginalised households. Results show a strong effect of social exclusion on labour force participation and poverty. Keywords: Social Exclusion, Labour Market Segmentation, Social Network


1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1085-1102 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Baumann ◽  
M M Fischer ◽  
U Schubert

This paper contains an analysis of a multiregional labour-supply model for Austria. In the approach suggested here attempts are made to combine the advantages of random-utility-based discrete choice theory and partial reduced-form estimation. Two recursive submodels, the labour-force participation submodel, and the commuting and employment submodel, are developed. Three different types of model specifications at the mesolevel are used to analyse the consequences of choosing a spatial framework of overlapping regional labour markets upon the model parameters, to investigate the usefulness of the model approach in relation to different regionalisation variants, and to carry out a sensitivity analysis with respect to the effects of the model parameters used to delineate the labour-market regions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sew Ming Tian

Through face-to-face interviews with seven immigrant women living in the Flemingdon Park area, this paper explores the barriers that immigrant women encounter in accessing the labour market, and the challenges they face in the labour market. The findings suggest that lack of work experience, language barriers, absence of networks, lack of education, and family responsibilities and gender roles are major barriers that immigrant women have to cope with while accessing the Canadian labour market. Working environment and underemployment appeared to be the challenges that immigrant women who are, or have been in the labour force, had to deal with in the work place.


Author(s):  
Manuela Stranges

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to explore the intergenerational transmission of female labor force participation from mothers to children. Using data collected by the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2018 (N = 118,219), we analyse four different samples of native and immigrant women and men in order to assess the relationship between working mothers and their daughters and sons' wives participation to the labour market. For both native and immigrant women, having had their mothers employed when the respondents were 14 was associated with higher probability they were employed at the time of survey. Similarly, for both native and immigrant men, having had their mothers employed when the respondents were 14 was associated with higher probability their wives were employed at the time of the survey. We concentrate our attention on the role of religion. We find that religiosity is negatively related to the participation of women in the labour market, with differences between those who had a working mother and those who had not. Results of some augmented models indicate that the intergenerational transmission of female labor force participation varies according to religious affiliation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Birch ◽  
Alison Preston

1 This article provides an overview of the key features of the labour market in 2019, with historical data providing insight into recent trends. In 2019, the female labour force participation rate reached an all-time high of 61.3%, 10 percentage points lower than the male rate. Disaggregated analysis shows this growth stems from rising participation amongst older women. This, in turn, is underpinned by a growth in feminised sectors of the labour market, notably the Health Care and Social Assistance sector. Since 2000 this sector has contributed 22.6% to total employment growth and at 2019 accounted for 13.5% of the Australian workforce. There has also been a growth in part-time and casual employment over recent years, with the latter now accounting for 25% of all employees. These are concerning developments, with estimates showing that 58.6% of casuals are not guaranteed a minimum number of hours of work in their job. The article notes that wages growth remains below that required to stimulate employment growth, and that a continued focus on conventional labour market indicators has the potential to lead to misguided policy formulation.


2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin O'Brien ◽  
Abbas Valadkhani ◽  
Keith Townsend

Both global and domestic economic growth remained robust in 2007 resulting in historically low unemployment and high labour force participation in Australia. However, these favourable labour force statistics were overshadowed for much of the year by a number of other issues such as the continuing drought, high oil and petrol prices and associated inflation and interest rate pressures, a November federal election, and the first full year of the operation of the Work Choices legislation. This article will address each of these issues by presenting an analysis of the macroeconomy and labour market, and reviewing the labour market implications of the Work Choices legislation in Australia.


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