The Bill finalises the government’s expansion of paid parental leave that was first announced in the October 2022-23 Budget, increasing the scheme to 26 weeks, or 6 months by July 2026.

From July 1 2024, parents will be eligible for an additional two weeks of leave to the current 18 weeks on offer, followed by another two in 2025 and then the final weeks in 2026. 

Four weeks are reserved for each parent on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis, with these changes designed to encourage parents to share the care.

The Bill also introduces concurrent leave, which means that from 2026, both parents can take four weeks of leave at the same time if they choose to, providing families with the flexibility to arrange their care how they need. 

Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth says the extra six weeks of is part of a total investment of $1.2 billion over five years from the Labor government towards paid parental leave. 

“Paid Parental Leave is a proud Labor legacy and our Albanese Labor Government is building and expanding on that legacy,” says Rishworth. 

“This will benefit over 180,000 families each year and represents the biggest expansion of the scheme since Labor introduced it in 2011.”

“The Bill gives Australian families more Paid Parental Leave than ever before and will support participation and productivity over the longer term, providing a dividend for the Australian economy,” she says.

There’s mounting evidence of a “motherhood penalty”, which refers to how becoming a mum in Australia comes with a high price for women. It occurs primarily because women take time out of the workforce or work fewer hours after having a child, which sees their lifetime earnings reduce significantly.

Creating an environment for fathers to take more parental leave has been shown to combat this, as shared parental leave policies can foster an equal division of unpaid care and paid work. 

Support for the Bill

Offering their suport for the increase to paid parental leave, the Australian Chamber of Commerce said “businesses are set to benefit by ensuring that fewer productive employees end up leaving workplaces permanently and more women remain in the labour market.”

Equality Rights Alliance, Australia’s largest network of organisations advocating for gender equality, has called the changes “equality enabling” and that it offers “significant advances in the promotion of Australian women’s economic security.”

Dr Leonora Risse, an economist specialising in gender equality, noted that this is a “historic milestone” for women’s rights and economic standing, and gender equality in Australia.

“The amendments in this Bill are an indisputable and significant improvement from previous policy settings and are strongly welcomed,” said Dr Risse. 

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“I remember years ago at a place I worked at, a man was taking two weeks parental leave and the boss said, ‘oh, do you need to take some time off to breastfeed?” 

Speaking to The Project, she recalled hearing the comment and immediately knowing it would have a “lasting impact” while also saying a lot about the workplace’s culture. 

Does such stigma prevail in 2023 Australian workplaces? Not everywhere, but definitely in some places. 

The latest data on men taking leave shows just how significant the issue is. 

Overall, 2023 has been a game-changing year for paid parental leave in Australia, with the Albanese Government’s extended Commonwealth funded scheme coming into effect in June, as well as another jump in the proportion of employers offering gender-neutral paid parental leave that is free from limiting ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels. 

The latest data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency released at the end of November and based on more than 5000 employers with 100 or more employees, highlights where paid parental leave access is improving, and where employers are seeing the value of supporting more diverse experiences of parenting and caring. 

But the data also provides some hints about how stigma and entrenched workplace cultures might be holding men back from taking leave. 

Of the employers that do offer paid parental leave, there was a nine per cent increase in 2022-23 in workplaces offering gender-neutral and label-free leave, or “universal paid parental leave” as WGEA refers to it. WGEA described this as a “hopeful” sign that employers are starting to understand the importance of removing carer labels. 

But WGEA also found that male-dominated industries were still far less likely to offer universal leave than female-dominated industries, meaning many male workers are missing out in areas like Manufacturing and Transport, Postal and Warehousing.  

Meanwhile, the proportion of employers offering some form of paid parental leave in addition to the government-funded leave hardly budged in the reporting period, rising just one percentage point from 62 to 63 per cent in 2022-23. 

Yet, even where paid parental leave is being offered and made more accessible, men are still not taking much of it. 

Overall, men accounted for just 14 per cent of all paid primary carer’s parental leave taken, just a tiny increase of 0.6 per cent. This is despite a growing number of men having the option to take leave funded by their employers. As WGEA Director Mary Wooldridge said on this gap in men being offered but not taking paid parental leave, having good and well-intentioned policies are just the start. “The real hard work comes in changing the culture and the environment, addressing any stigma or underlying stereotypes that inhibit those policies being taken up and put into place.”

Unfortunately, the trend in men taking government-funded paid parental leave also isn’t encouraging. New government figures recently released show the scheme was accessed by 170,200 women in 2022, compared with just 1,020 men. The data shows that 87,895 men accessed the two-week “dad and partner pay”, which has since been removed for the reformed scheme, compared to 745 women. 

Also limiting men and an overall shift in access to PPL are continued vast divides in who has access to PPL, with the WGEA data showing employees can not only be limited by their gender and carer status, but also limited by the size of the business they happen to work for. 

Almost nine in ten (87 per cent) of businesses in the 5000 plus employee range are offering paid primary carers or universally available parental leave, compared with just 57 per cent in the 100 to 246 employee range, and a total figure across all sized employees of 63 per cent. 

Although we don’t have WGEA data on business with less than 100 team members, we know that startups and small businesses can struggle to offer paid parental leave, given concerns about resourcing such policies.

There are also concerns that employers are seeing the government scheme as “enough” for new parents, which goes against expectations from the prime minister earlier this year that employers should step up to complement the system. Forty five per cent of those employers that don’t offer PPL say it’s because the “government scheme is sufficient”. But it’s not. Australia still has one of the least generous paid parental leave schemes when compared to most other OECD nations with an average of over 52 weeks leave on offer.

The uptake of paid parental leave for men is a critical component for shifting entrenched social expectations and creating a stronger environment of shared care. Men need to see role models taking parental leave and role models again highlighting what it means to “share the care”: working flexibly, part time, being open and proud about taking time out for kids. 

So, when men can access the leave, what’s stopping them from doing so? 

First up, there’s the gender pay gap, and the fact men are so often in higher-paid positions. The WGEA data uncovered a 21.7 per cent total remuneration gender pay gap. Men are also still far more likely to be in senior leadership roles, accounting for 78 per cent of CEOs, 59 per cent of senior management positions. 

But there is also the workplace stigma, social norms and entrenched gender stereotypes standing in the way of men taking paid parental leave and even going on to work in part time and flexible positions.  The reality is men need to feel it’s ‘safe’ to take parental leave and many don’t. Fearful that their role, status or performance review will be negatively impacted if they take leave.

Labels matter. While the Federal Government recently rescinded the reference to primary and secondary carer provisions when PPL changes were introduced from July this year, many employer PPL policies still make employees distinguish between being a primary or secondary carer. This has a knock-on effect on how leave and caring duties will be split and shared at home and often, inadvertently, pigeon-hole women as primary carers, and men as having ‘less’ caring responsibilities at home.

There is the fact that men in smaller businesses are less likely to have access to any kind of employer-paid parental leave — an issue that also impacts women, but could put the onus on women to take more unpaid leave regardless of what sized business she works in. 

And there is the entrenched history and expectations we continue to carry regarding who does the care work, despite such expectations coming in sharp contrast to the dramatic increase in women’s workforce participation. 

Many advocates agree on the need for men to be better supported to take parental leave as one of the most important levers government and workplaces have to improve gender equality outcomes, while also benefiting the health and development of children.  Parents At Work has released its latest white paper outlining how employers can adopt a gender neural PPL scheme and is calling on workplaces to benchmark their PPL policy against best practices standards to champion greater Family Friendly Workplaces.

Employers can help change this starting with benchmarking their parental leave policies and practices against The National Work + Family Standards. There is also a business case guide for employers on Advancing Shared Care in Australia through Paid Parental Leave which highlights how employers can contribute to changing how we approach parental leave in Australia.

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He wants a baby boom to support population growth and enable a confident future for the country. But he’s worried that “ideological and sexist denial of women’s choices” (weird way to think about choice, but ok) is leading women and men into having fewer children all over the Western world, thanks to “outdated ideology”.

And the proof is in the birthrate, he says, at just 1.63 in 2022 per woman over the course of her lifetime, down from 1.7 in 2018.

But the real glory years of the birthrate was when it hit 2.01 during the final years of the partnership of former prime minister John Howard and former treasurer Peter Costello, partially thanks to the policy of the baby bonus — which provided a payment to parents who had a baby, with the former Treasurer personally issuing a call for more Australians to have more children, “one for mum, one for dad, and one for the country.”

So that brings us to 2023, where women are not only having less children but also having them later in life. Not to alarm Sheridan further, but the latest ABS figure released in October also found that sixty per cent of births are now to mothers in the 30 to 39 year old age group, up from just 20 per cent in 1975.

What could possibly be the issue? According to Sheridan, while everyone has a choice, they are choices today being made in the face of “coercive feminist and green ideology” depicting the having of children as an indulgent destruction of the planet.

Funny, nowhere in Sheridan’s column does he mention some of the other factors limiting choice, like the cost and inaccessibility of early childhood education. Nor was there much mention of how the cost of living today means raising children on one income alone is pretty difficult, if not near impossible. Just ask the almost nine in ten single mothers saying they are concerned about their long-term financial wellbeing, according to the largest national survey of single mothers in Australia, released this week. And no mention of the impact of family and domestic violence on women and their choices.

The baby bonus offered new parents a lump-sum payment of $3000 from 1 July 2004, rising to $5000 and being put to rest in 2014. While it did have a positive impact on increasing the birthrate, the lumpsum’s benefits to the economy may well be outdone by the implications of the motherhood penalty facing women in Australia.

Could the lowering birthrate be actually about something more than women succumbing to a feminist conspiracy that babies are destructively bad, to women actually calculating the costs and realising that the numbers are near impossible?

Just so we’re clear, and leaving aside the added considerations that women take into account right now — and yes, climate change and other factors, such as their actual desire to want to have and raise a baby might be at play — the numbers do not add up. A $5000 baby bonus, nor even a $15,000 baby bonus, can make up for the financial hit that a woman will take in the years after having a child, and for every subsequent child she has. October 2022 Treasury analysis found that a mother’s earnings fall by an average 55 per cent during her first five years of parenthood. And the more education a woman has, the larger the penalty she faces.

The good news is that fathers’ earnings were found to be “unaffected by entry into parenthood.”

On current work trends, the average 25 year old woman today who goes on to have one child can expect to end up with $2 million less in lifetime earnings than the average man who does the same, according to recent data shared by the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce.

There was also no mention of paid parental leave in this morning’s column highlighting the need for a baby boom in Australia. When Commonwealth-funded paid parental leave was introduced, the option remained for a period to choose between the leave or to take the baby bonus, before the bonus was scrapped altogether in 2014. Despite changes to PPL that came into effect just this year, the system remains woefully inadequate and far from meeting the standards of OECD nations that lead on offering paid leave, and particularly in promoting shared leave and encouraging more fathers to take on the care. Australia’s system relies on the private sector to make up the shortfall in order for parents to have a child without falling into poverty and/or at least while still being able to afford rent and mortgage repayments. The problem, of course, is that not enough employers do currently offer paid parental leave in addition to the 20 weeks paid at the minimum wage by the federal government.

There was also no mention of the cost of early childhood education, where the childcare fees are rising faster than inflation, and by between 20 and 32 per cent in the four financial years between 2018 and 2022. The Albanese Government’s childcare package has been introduced to support with these costs, but the pace of rising fees is excelling what’s on offer in subsidies.

Meanwhile, just getting food on the table for the children this country already has is proving difficult. One in six children are living in poverty and 3.7 million households experienced hunger last year, according to October 2022 data released by Foodbank Australia. It’s an issue exacerbated by the housing crisis — with 77 per cent of food-insecure households experiencing this pressure for the first time in the previous 12 months.

And another issue — one that also doesn’t get a mention — is the proportion of parents who want to have a baby but can’t, with one in six Australian couples of reproductive age struggling to have a child.

In a list of recommendations from the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce presented to the Government last month, there was no suggestion that women should be told to have fewer babies. Rather, a list of ideas were outlined to better support women who continue to take on the lionshare of the care work, both unpaid care such as looking after kids, as the (severely underpaid and critically understaffed) work across the care economy, including childcare, disability care and aged care.

One thing this taskforce highlighted is how we could actually unleash the economic potential of women and leverage one of our greatest untapped resources. It is a resource that is, and could be available right now with the right policies in place to support and enable women’s full economic participation. Better yet, it’s a resource that doesn’t require waiting for a hoped boom in babies to be supported, get educated, grow up, and enter the workforce.

Sheridan then goes on to demonise immigration, highlighting that “not all immigration is equal” and sharing some “great” and “not so great” examples of such, that I’m not going to repeat here. It was a curious argument again here, given that even babies that are born and grow up in Australia can also grow up to behave at the extreme ends of good and bad.

If you want to build a “confident” and prosperous Australia, start by removing the existing barriers to participation.

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Almost half of premature babies will spend between one and four months in hospital, with 48,000 babies requiring the support of a Neonatal Intensive Unit or Special Care Nursery every year. 

The petition has been launched by the Miracle Babies Foundation and calls for an extra week of paid parental leave to be granted to families per week they spend in hospital, beyond two weeks for a maximum of 14 weeks. Families would then be able to commence the standard leave entitlement. 

Currently, the government’s paid parental leave covers 20 weeks of paid leave that is able to be shared between both parents. There is no additional support for parents of babies who are born early and require specialist care in hospital beyond two weeks.

The petition will presented to parliament by Dr Mike Freelander, on 16 November.

Research from the Miracle Babies Foundation shows that 8 in 10 families who have premature babies experience a greater financial burden. Having to use their paid parental leave entitlements while their baby is still in hospital often means parents of premature babies need to return to work sooner than anticipated. 

Federal Labor MP, Dr Mike Freelander said he was pleased to support the campaign.

“As a paediatrician, I know that many children are required to stay in hospital for extended periods of time, and it is therefore clear that we need to review the scope of paid parental leave to better assist families in these challenging times,” he said. 

Rachel Dimech, a mother of a premature baby, said returning to work early was detrimental to her own health. 

“I returned to work only two weeks after my son was born, only to end up back in hospital with an infection because I didn’t take the time to recover,” she said. 

“I had no choice – my son was in the hospital for 85 days, and I was only eligible for 18 weeks paid time off, leaving me with only 42 days at home with my newborn. I could either spend time with him in hospital, or spend time with him at home, but I couldn’t do both.”

“If I had access to additional paid leave for the time my son was in hospital, I could have worried about him – not keeping a roof over our heads.”

You can find the peition here.

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That’s according to a recent survey from Business NSW, that included responses from big business all the way through to sole traders. Together, the respondents employ nearly 80,000 workers. 

This lowering of business confidence is occurring Australia-wide, and points to uncertain, and perhaps tougher economic conditions ahead. The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show slowing economic growth and weak household consumption as the highest interest rates in a decade have stalled demand.

With concerns of a recession now on the horizon, businesses and employers will look for ways to cut their costs. It also makes it all the more important that employers are getting bang for their buck when it comes to the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies they may have in place. 

Below, we’ve outlined five non-negotiable DEI policies for employers that will help their business flourish in a slowing economy. 

Paid parental leave

When it comes to DEI policies, delivering paid parental leave to employees is a key action that has a proven, positive flow on effect for organisations. 

Employer-funded parental leave ensures new parents are supported as they embark upon one of the most challenging times in their lives and careers. It can lead to reduced staff turnover, which in turn leads to fewer recruitment and training costs for businesses.

In uncertain economic times, retaining your best talent can help ensure businesses keep their productivity high and employees satisfied. A top-tier paid parental leave policy can also be a key way for organisations to show they are leading with a “people-first” attitude.

Best practice paid parental leave policies from employers in Australia have removed ‘‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels to encourage both mothers and fathers to take up the leave. In the OECD, the average length of leave offered is 53 weeks, while countries like Iceland, Norway and Finland offer paid parental leave at around 80 per cent of a parent’s normal wage. 

Meanwhile, supporting new parents with paid parental leave has considerable advantages – not just for businesses, but for the entire economy. As noted by KPMG in a major report on paid parental leave in 2021, equal parenting models in families can give rise to a higher standard of living, and benefits for businesses, with increased productivity and workforce participation. It can also help reduce gender pay and superannuation gaps, and help mothers stay connected to the workforce. 

Sponsorship 

Another DEI policy that has innumerable positive benefits for businesses and provides a significant return on investment, are sponsorship programs that link senior leaders with emerging leaders within an organisation. 

As we’ve noted on Women’s Agenda previously, sponsorship can be a key way to dismantle systemic and behavioural barriers that hold women back in workplaces. This has never been more important as Australia’s economic growth slows.

Katriina Tähkä, Managing Director at Cultivate Sponsorship, knows the benefits of sponsorship first-hand and says now is not the time to back off on career development, even amid tougher economic conditions.

“Uncertain economic times can lead employees to also feel uncertain about job security and career progression at their current employer unless there are signs to the contrary,” Tähkä told Women’s Agenda.

“If people do not believe that their company and leaders genuinely care about their continued development or they feel overlooked and isolated it can lead to people changing jobs. Now is not the time to back off on career development; but to ensure that your most valuable resource, your people, know that they are valued.”

Tähkä says that sponsorship programs ensure that leaders have the skills they need to be effective sponsors, and that investing in emerging leaders is necessary if they are to be part of an organisation’s financial success. 

“Having a sponsor in your corner gives you a senior person in your company who understands your aspirations and is looking out for ways to keep you on the radar for opportunities,’ she said. 

“That connection will keep employees engaged even through the most challenging economic conditions. Engaged employees are more productive and will be key to helping any organisation to weather uncertainty. Leading with a people-first culture will always pay off in the long term.”

Flexible work practices 

On top of paid parental leave and sponsorship programs, continuing to offer employees flexible work options is critical in this uncertain economic period. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), flexible work options are one of the key ways employers can ensure they are being responsive to their employees’ needs. As WGEA highlights, attracting and retaining diverse talent is critical to future-proofing businesses – all the more important if employers are looking at strategies to thrive in a shrinking economy. 

Whether it’s offering remote or hybrid work practices, flexible hours for working parents, or allowing some roles to shift to job-sharing arrangements – there are many ways that flexible work arrangements can fit into a business. 

With flexible work policies comes diverse talent, as well as more diverse leadership teams. And, as a growing body of evidence has made clear, there is a clear business case for more diverse leadership teams. They perform better, deliver greater profits, and achieve higher ESG outcomes. 

Data collection

Collecting data on your company’s DEI policies is also critical to ensuring you are getting the most out of the strategies that are in place. In an adverse economic climate, getting the most out of DEI practices can be a real benefit to any business. Moreover, tracking the outcomes and success of policies with clear metrics is critical to ensure there is accountability at the leadership level.

Also, having transparency around the goals of a company’s DEI strategy will mean employees are more confident in their workplace’s commitment to better outcomes. It can also help to educate and inspire employees, a key part of talent retention. 

Cultivate Sponsorship provides its clients with an Impact Report at the end of each program, which  provides a workplace with a comprehensive overview of employees’ sentiments on their career progression and DEI policies. It’s another transparency measure that can help an organisation decide if they need to make incremental changes to better its DEI outcomes. 

A commitment to preventing harassment, discrimination, and bullying 

One in three workers in Australia have experienced sexual harassment in their workplace over the last five years, according to a national survey undertaken in late 2022. Meanwhile, just half of employees say their employers have provided information on how to report an incident.

With a slate of changes following former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’ Respect@Work report in 2020, there a number of new requirements for employers to take note of. Importantly, it is now incumbent upon businesses to prevent sexual harassment from occuring in their workplace, after legislation passed through federal parliament last year creating a “positive duty” for employers.  The respect@work.gov.au website provides information and resources for employers to help create respectful workplaces, free from harassment.

Preventing your employees from suffering from discrimination and bullying is just as vital to ensure workplaces are safe for everyone. As the economy slows, ensuring workplaces are safe is key to enabling employee productivity and wellbeing – both are essential for the financial success and resilience of a business. 

Ensuring your policies on harassment, discrimination, and bullying are up to date and implemented fully is non-negotiable in this economic climate. But most importantly leaders need to ‘walk the talk’. They need to be visible role models of the behaviours expected in the organisation even through the most challenging of times. Adversity can’t be an excuse for loosening the standards of respect expected of everyone.  

Leaders who are active sponsors of others will understand firsthand the barriers and challenges that others face and commit to overcoming them. Seeing your own company through another person’s eyes and lived experience is a powerful way to teach empathy and understanding, crucial for the decision makers to understand the potential multigenerational impact of the decisions they make now. If you take flexible work and paid parental leave off the table now and overlook inappropriate behaviour how will this impact the people in your organisation?

Although DEI is often first on the hit list of cost cutting; chances are that you will be cutting more than just the budget.

Learn more about Cultivate Sponsorship here.

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For a child born or adopted from July 1 2023, the Commonwealth-funded Paid Parental Leave is up to 20 weeks (or 100 payable days). The payment is flexible, meaning eligible families can claim it in multiple blocks until the child turns two. There is no longer a requirement to return to work to be eligible for the entitlement. Changes expand eligibility and purportedly give families more choice in how they share the leave. Notably, references to defining parents as a ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer have been removed.

But many experts agree, the much-needed PPL changes do not go far enough and argue that they won’t deliver the transformation required to encourage men to take up the leave. To achieve paid-parental leave equality and see the benefits of parents better sharing care loads, it will take both the government, and employers, to seriously invest in funding, advocacy and education to shift the current status-quo.

What do we mean by shared care in this context? It means establishing a foundation supporting fathers to take extended periods of paid parental leave where they can bond with their child, take part in their early care, and then continue to play a strong role in the unpaid work at home. 

Achieving better balance in care helps everyone. Fathers get more valuable time with their children, mothers have better opportunities to pursue paid work and their careers, children benefit from stronger connections with their parents, and the country sees an uptick in GDP thanks to greater women’s workforce participation. The business case is powerful for the nation, just as it is powerful for employers to promote policies that can promote shared care to assist in attracting and retaining the best possible talent.

Australia has a long way to go in achieving this balance. Just 12 per cent of those taking employer-paid ‘primary’ carer’s leave are men, according to the latest data from the 2022 data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, despite more than half of employers now offering it to men and women. The ABS previously reported that dads account for just 5 per cent of those taking the government-funded PPL on offer for primary carers. Seventy percent of women, compared with 42.4 per cent of men, are participating in housework, and women are spending three hours and 34 minutes a day in childcare-related activities, compared to 2 hours and 19 minutes for men. 

Meanwhile, fathers continue to face stigma and barriers around taking on this care. Last week, new research from the Gidget Foundation found that only one in three new fathers felt well supported by their workplace after having a child, with only one in five feeling supported during their partner’s pregnancy. 

Shared parental leave policies can help to narrow these gaps, foster an equal division of unpaid care and paid work, and improve the work-life balance of families. 

The minimal increase to the number of weeks available under the Commonwealth-funded paid parental leave scheme from 1 July is to be followed by further incremental increases to reach 26 weeks by the year 2026. This leave continues to be paid at the minimum wage. There is no requirement for employers to top up.  

Unfortunately, even when elevated to 26 weeks, Australia still falls well behind the world leading nations on paid parental leave – who also happen to be world leaders on gender equality, according to the latest Gender Gap Index, from the World Economic Forum. Iceland, Norway and Finland took the top three spaces on this Index, with all three boasting PPL schemes that pay new parents more than a year of PPL, at around 80 per cent of a parent’s wage. These countries also boast strong ‘use it or lose it’ provisions to encourage Dads to take leave by making it financially viable to do so. 

Back in Australia, the childcare reform package introduced this month is another small step towards enabling more parents to share the care, in that it should make additional days of care more affordable for families.  

Too often, we hear of mothers in dual-parent, heterosexual households cutting back on work days or deciding not to return to work due to childcare costs making it “not worth it”. While such costs should always be considered shared in such a household, a number of factors lead many mothers to see this as their cost to weigh up, when determining whether additional paid work makes financial sense. Those factors include mothers earning less than fathers, and mothers being more likely to already work part time or be returning to work following a career break. 

The childcare reform package with the changes to the subsidy that will appear in payments from 10 July will make a real impact on making it easier for mothers to pick up additional days of work, or perhaps pursue early childhood education opportunities for their child for the first time. The result? The opportunity to better share in paid work and ultimately better share the care. 

So what next for promoting shared care in Australia? It’s unlikely we’re going to have further significant government-backed reform to paid parental leave in the near future. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously acknowledged that his government’s legislated changes are a “national minimum standard” and a foundation for a wider system, with “enlightened employers” competing to offer working parents the best possible deal. 

It’s clear, the government is expecting employers to step in, and we need them to.

Employers funding PPL is on the rise.  Many are adjusting their policies to meet the expectations of modern families and to attract and retain talent. This includes removing ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carer labels, eliminating previous tenure requirements to ensure such leave is offered from day one on the job, and paying superannuation during periods of parental leave.  But it’s not just funding and flexibility that’s needed, we need employers to double down on pregnancy and carer discrimination that persists in workplaces.  Gender bias around caring responsibilities is not only harmful to women’s workforce participation, pay and leadership representation, it hurts men too when they are excluded from care-giving.  Men will not take parental leave if they do not feel it is ‘safe’ or affordable to do so.

Now is the time for more employers to recognise the business case for PPL and to do a health check on what they are currently offering to see how they can complement the government’s paid scheme. 

We must also continue to advocate for greater commitment from government to increase PPL funding beyond 2026 to be more in line with the OECD average of 53 weeks and to pursue a universal early childhood education system that delivers for Australian families and educators, not only for the sake of our future generation, but also for our economic growth.

Parents At Work have today released the Whitepaper Advancing Shared Care in Australia through Paid Parental Leave: The business case for employers to take action. The Whitepaper helps employers to understand the current state of play and what they can change to evolve policies that support their people but also their business.

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They should, of course, because we all know combining caregiving and paid work is often tough. 

While the ads leading into Mother’s Day are all about “thank you mum, you’re the best”, back at work it’s often a crazy game of ‘Workplace Survivor’, but without the hope of ever winning a job-saving ‘Immunity Idol’. 

How crazy? In 2022, the Victorian Government awarded funding for five research projects to deepen our understanding of experiences of disadvantage and discrimination in the workplace. One of these research projects, led by Associate Professor Alysia Blackham at the University of Melbourne, focusses on the experiences of caregivers and their struggle for fair treatment in the workplace. 

The final report is just back, and I’m sure Women’s Agenda readers will nod their heads in recognition, while simultaneously shaking their heads in frustration.  

There are 2.65 million Australians who provide care to children, parents, relatives, neighbours, and community members every single day. For many, caregiving responsibilities can occur at multiple times throughout their life. Such care can take many forms, including domestic work and physical tasks. However, under-recognised and undervalued forms of care also include emotional labour and varying mental loads.  

Some of these caring responsibilities are predictable and can be anticipated in advance; others are less predictable and require immediate attention. 

The report’s overall finding was clear: Caregiving has a significant impact on workplace inequality and hurts career advancement. 

Some women surveyed said that they actively hid information regarding their caregiver status from employers and their immediate teams. This included lying about the age of children, removing wedding rings during interviews, and hiding pregnancy for extended periods of time.  

One woman interviewed said: “I definitely dragged my heels on having kids … you’ve got to get some runs on the board with the job. You can’t just start a job and get pregnant, or you’ll get stuck in a low-level position forever. So yeah, I dragged my feet for ages.” 

And another: “Pregnancy and parenting was seen as an inconvenience. My immediate boss did not have children. She would make comments aloud about the inconvenience of mothers returning from parental leave and having to accommodate part time working arrangements.”

The report found 67 per cent of survey respondents believed that work has affected their ability to take on a caregiving role. Many respondents had to look for alternative care arrangements as a result of their work commitments.  

Gender gaps in career advancement emerge in parallel to greater caregiving responsibilities, especially when caring for children. This affects workplace recruitment, retention, promotion, pay, superannuation and flexible work and is compounded by workplace cultures that continue to perpetuate negative attitudes towards caregiving.  

Careers stagnated again when respondents took on care for their parents, partners, and family/ community members. For some respondents, this exacerbated their economic precarity and financial insecurity. 

And respondents on short and fixed-term contracts were much more likely to report feeling a heightened sense of insecurity when trying to access their leave entitlements. 

I’ve talked about female caregivers, but yes, men are caregivers too. However, the report makes it clear that women are far more likely to take on that role, and this has ongoing implications for their career advancement and financial resources. 

Twenty-three per cent of women compared to 16 per cent of men had requested flexible working arrangements. Women were more likely than men to request workplace adjustments for caring responsibilities (8.1 per cent of women vs 4.9 per cent of men) and family responsibilities (9.6 per cent of women vs 6.2 per cent of men). 

Issues concerning caregivers in the workforce were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – especially in Victoria – as childcare, schooling and aged care were closed or limited during lockdowns. Women carers were particularly disadvantaged as they took on significantly more caring duties than men, increasing their time spent on unpaid care and housework. 

Conversely, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic cemented these flexible practices as a preferable way of working that can be made more readily available. In interviews for the research, participants expressed concern, confusion and anxiety around whether flexible working arrangements would continue, as there has been ongoing pressure to ‘return to normal’ (in-office) ways of working.  

If this were to happen it would be a backward step because interview respondents recounted how greater flexibility made them more productive, more engaged, and less burnt out at work. Caregivers tend to be harder working than non-caregivers. The research found that 40 per cent of working caregivers argued they were more productive now than they were before the pandemic. 

It is important to note that this survey was conducted among employees in the Victorian public sector (including local government and universities) where workplace flexibility is actually more prevalent.

There is clearly a lot more that can be done to make it easier for all workers with caregiving responsibilities. 

The University of Melbourne research found existing entitlements need to be reviewed, to ensure they meet the everchanging needs of caregivers in the workforce. This includes considering increasing personal and sick leave entitlements and making flexible working arrangements the default. 

Some other simple things that can make a big difference are promoting and publicising managers taking leave and utilising flexible working arrangements that accommodate for their caring needs to encourage senior role modelling. 

You might also consider integrating discussions about flexibility and flexible work arrangements in regular check-ins with staff, as well as making information regarding leave entitlements clearer and more accessible, so employees in all positions and roles can easily understand and utilise their workplace benefits. 

I look forward to the Hallmark cards and the TV ads celebrating mums managing the juggle of unpaid caring and paid work. It’s no easy feat without flexibility in workplaces.  

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As another International Women’s Day (IWD) comes and goes, it can feel like progress on gender equality is glacial at best.

In fact, the Antarctic glaciers sadly might disappear sooner than gender bias and disadvantage.

But we believe the vast majority of Australian men want a world that truly offers their daughters the same opportunities as their sons. They realise that improving women’s participation and economic wellbeing makes men and women all wealthier and happier.

Which is great, because it is men who are in the best position to help make this a reality.

Men occupy the vast majority of positions of power: on boards, in the C-suite, as investors and those who receive the bulk of investment, and in Government. 

Studies have shown that men listen more readily to other men than to women. 

And finally, marginalised and disadvantaged groups are tired and should not be responsible for solving their own disadvantage. They need proactive allies and advocates in positions of power to speak out and act.

Therefore it is men who must move from passive allies to active advocates, and actively dismantle the systems and biases that prevent gender equality.

Here are some relatively easy actions male leaders can take to accelerate progress.

Identify and address subconscious biases

Subconscious biases can impact decisions and behaviour in invisible ways that impede women.

‘Implicit association tests’, like Harvard’s gender-career test, can help uncover a range of these subconscious biases such as associating men with careers, and women with family. 

This is an excellent, free, and quick way to understand that, no matter how consciously you may fight your biases, there are many operating at a deeper level.

Next, sign up to at least one course for you and your colleagues to better understand and address subconscious bias.

Identify and address organisational or institutional biases 

From confirmation to conformity to authority bias, to policies and practices that perpetuate systemic discrimination – there are so many types of biases that can occur within an organisation.

Address these through an anonymous staff survey of the different biases staff have observed or experienced, including asking how these biases could be solved or avoided. Then turn these suggestions into an action plan.

Get comfortable with positive discrimination

This IWD, Third Hemisphere is giving all female staff a paid day off. 

This small act of positive discrimination is designed to address the myriad of research that proves women work more combined hours in the workforce and at home, for significantly less pay.

Positive discrimination requires unequally favouring individuals that are disadvantaged or subject to negative discrimination, to correct or minimise their disadvantage.

This does not disadvantage the superior or majority group; rather, it is a necessary step towards achieving the equality that will benefit us all.

Set a quota for mentoring women

Mentorship programs dramatically improve promotion and retention rates for minorities and women. Yet it’s most common for male leaders to mentor other men.

So set yourself the goal of mentoring a minimum number of women in the next twelve months.

And it’s OK if you end up mentoring more women than men. You’re addressing a systemic imbalance in access to mentoring opportunities by doing so.

Create a “reverse mentorship” program

Create a program where you and your male peers are mentored by women in the organisation, and perhaps even those more junior.

This will help male leaders gain a better understanding of the challenges faced by women in all positions, and increase collaboration.

Use gender-blind job applications and performance evaluations

The meritocracy myth says that women and men get hired and promoted based on their ability and performance. But we know this is not the case due to conscious, subconscious, and institutional biases.

One famous demonstration of this is when the Boston Symphony Orchestra implemented blind auditions one year, and the chances of a woman making it to the next round instantly jumped by almost 50 percent.

Consider recruitment SAAS platforms like Applied that will anonymise job applicants’ personally identifiable information, and watch the composition of your candidates change in front of your eyes.

Champion flexible work arrangements

Unfortunately, women still perform the majority of childrearing and domestic labour – even if they are the primary breadwinner.

So – on top of reassessing your own contribution at home – implement flexible work arrangements that promote greater balance between work and family commitments.

This could include offering part-time work, job sharing, flexible hours, and remote working.

Lead by example in taking paternity leave

Help make a difference by taking time off work! 

By taking paternity leave yourself, you show everyone in your organisation that men should also be committed to balancing work and family responsibilities.

We told you that actions for gender parity benefit men too!

The post How men in power can and must step up for women appeared first on Women's Agenda.

Melbourne University’s 2023 State of the Future of Work report finds male caregivers see fewer opportunities for advancement, have greater difficulty concentrating at work, have less time to get work done, are less productive and have a greater desire to quit than males without caregiving demands. 

Findings show half of male caregivers report feeling exhausted compared to a third of men without caregiving demands.

Shared caring responsibilities are a key to gender equality and the report calls these findings “critical” as more men will need to step into caregiving roles to support ageing populations.

“Workplaces have historically focused on women’s caregiving, leaving a tremendous gap for the male caregivers,” says the report, adding that the pandemic caused many ongoing problems.

Results show 48 per cent of workers with caregiving responsibilities feel they are working harder than pre-pandemic compared to about 37 per cent of workers without caregiving responsibilities. 

The lead author of the study, Professor Leah Ruppanner told the Sydney Morning Herald that “the pandemic provided many men the opportunity to step into caregiving roles” but that this report shows these fathers “are suffering in the same way women have for ever and ever: discrimination at work.” 

Caregivers require targeted interventions to support their employment, and the report recommends that a portion of high wage replacement paid parental leave be reserved for fathers in a use-it or lose-it agreement.

Workplace policies targeted towards caregivers and flexible work were key policy needs identified by caregivers in the report’s survey. 

The 2023 report uncovered a number of other key findings, including that workplace discrimination is more prevalent and nuanced than previously thought, chronic illness is an increasing problem in the workplace, flexible workers miss their colleagues but are still happy and productive, prime aged workers report worse workplace health two years into the pandemic and Australian workers are unsure how AI will impact their skills and jobs. 

Drawn from a sample of 1,400 Australian workers from a national panel provided by YouGov, the data represents workers from all six states and two territories. 

The average survey respondent was 41-years-old, university-educated and working full time. 

“The future of work is the future of care,” says the report.

“The ageing of Australia’s population, the growth of the mature-aged workforce, the intensification of caregiving demands and workplace discrimination faced by marginalised groups create major future challenges.”

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Failing to pay superannuation on paid parental leave is behind the loss in retirement savings, with women set to continue to lose out until the government introduces the entitlement on its Commonwealth scheme.

The modelling from HESTA and Laneway Analytics shows that delaying paying super on paid parental leave for one year – until July 2024 – would reduce retirement savings of a typical HESTA member who has a child in the financial year of 2024 by more than $6,000. 

An extended delay of the reform until July 2025 would reduce the retirement savings of a HESTA member with two young children by $12,7000.

HESTA CEO Debby Blakey said the lack of reform when it comes to paying super on paid parental leave is “unfair” for new parents, especially women who tend to take more parental leave than men. 

“Failing to pay super on parental leave pay has seen working mums unfairly miss out on billions of dollars in super, and this research shows they’ll keep losing thousands of dollars in retirement savings each year this important equity reform is delayed,” she said.

“Our super system is one of the world’s best but clear, persisting gaps remain where millions of Australians, mainly women, are still falling through the cracks and not getting the full benefits of super. For women this means they are still retiring with around a third less super than men.”

Blakey said extending the Super Guarantee to workers taking paid leave to care for children will create a fairer retirement system, as well as contribute to closing Australia’s significant gender super gap. Currently, the federal paid parental leave scheme is the only paid leave in Australia that does not come with an entitlement to superannnuation.

“The federal government’s decision this week to cut back super tax concessions for super account balances over $3 million is an important sustainability measure, but it is critically important that the government acts now to ensure these savings help deliver a fairer and more equitable super system,” Blakey said.

“That’s why we’re calling on the government to prioritise paying super on the Commonwealth Parental Leave Pay scheme and other important equity measures. Not paying super on parental leave pay sends a message that unpaid caring work is undervalued when in reality this work is indispensable to our economy and the wellbeing of families.

“Nearly 80% of our members are women who work mainly in caring roles that are typically lower paid such as aged care and early childhood education. They shouldn’t be financially penalised at retirement after spending their lives looking after others.”

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The change effectively doubles the tax rate – up from 15 per cent – on super balances for the 80,000 people in Australia who have more than $3 million in their account. These people will continue to benefit from the 15 per cent tax rate for earnings from assets below the $3 million mark.

According to the government, 99.5 per cent of super accounts in Australia have less than $3 million, meaning just 0.5% of people will be impacted by the reform.

The change is scheduled to come into effect after the next election, in the first half of 2025. 

The government says it will collect about $2 billion every year from the changes, which will only affect a small number of Australians with large super balances.

How will this affect women?

In Australia, there is a significant gender gap when it comes to superannuation, with women retiring, on average, with much less superannuation than men.

According to KPMG, for those aged 55-59, the gender super gap is 33 percent, while in the peak earning years of 45-49, the gender gap is 35 percent. As a result, older women in Australia are the fastest growing group of people experiencing homelessness and poverty.

This gender gap in super means women are much less likely to be among the 80,000 Australians that will be affected by the government’s changes.

What else should we consider?

On the ABC’s 7.30 program on Wednesday, Independent MP Allegra Spender, who represents one of the wealthiest electorates in the country where people are more likely to be impacted by the government’s changes, said her community “is more open to it than you would think”.

She made the point that people will have a chance to vote on the changes to super, because they are not scheduled to come into effect until 2025 – after the next federal election.

Should we pay super on paid parental leave?

Elsewhere, a number of crossbench MPs have put forward the idea that the $2 billion collected each year from the changes could be used to fund superannuation entitlements for those taking paid parental leave. This would help close the superannuation gender gap, which is exacerbated when women take time out of the workforce for caring purposes.

Currently, parents do not receive superannuation payments while receiving government paid parental leave.

Zoe Daniel said she would like to see the government consider using this reform to bring in superannuation payments to paid parental leave. She noted women in her electorate of Goldstein have $54,000 less in super than men when they retire.

“I’m particularly interested in how the government plans to spend that revenue, including the potential to add superannuation entitlements to Paid Parental Leave, given that women already have far lower super balances than men and are at greater risk of poverty and homelessness in retirement,” Daniel said in a statement.

Kylea Tink and Dr Monique Ryan have also said they would support the revenue being used to implement super entitlements on parental leave.

“It’s a no-brainer. The small cost of adding superannuation payments to paid parental leave would send a strong signal to women and Australian families that they deserve equal footing to everyone else,” Tink said. 

“Paying super on paid parental leave will help decrease gender inequity.  It’s only fair,” Ryan said.

The post Changes to superannuation? Here’s how it could impact women appeared first on Women's Agenda.

The policies also cover parents adopting a child, and cover staff anywhere in the world, since the UN is exempted from local labour laws. 

The International Civil Service Commission — the body that regulates UN staff employment conditions, made changes to the policy last month — a decision Ian Richards, an Economist in Digital Government and Investment Facilitation at the UN has been lobbying for since 2017. 

“Six years ago I was among those who started mobilising for new UN parental leave rules that would recognise WHO recommendations for six months exclusive breastfeeding, enable a more equal workload between parents and eliminate the professional sidelining of birth-age women and better reflect the diversity of who parents are and how they got there,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

“Others took over the relay baton and I am pleased that as of 2023 a new UN parental leave policy is in place…Thank you to everyone who contributed to this change.” 

In an interview with Human Resources Online, Richards said he was “delighted by the change in policy, which has taken a lot of work with many colleagues.”

“We were worried that cost considerations would block it at the final hurdle but we are glad that the General Assembly eventually decided to prioritise employee welfare,” he said. 

Mark Polane, president of the UN Field Staff Union and the UN International Civil Servants’ Federation (ICSC) called the latest changes “significant”.

“A number of UN organisations already had better parental leave arrangements in place for their staff,” he said. “However, many of those were based on “creative” solutions using existing other leave entitlements that would be “bolted on” to the standard maternity/paternity leave.” 

Organisations including the UN will have to work on “being more progressive on the one hand and being in compliance with the ICSC framework,” he added.

The latest changes mean that parental leave at the UN now exceeds that given to staff at the IMF, who currently offer 12 weeks to birth mothers, and eight weeks for fathers and adoptive parents.

At the World Food Programme, birth mothers can access 24 weeks of paid leave, while staff at UN. Women have up to 32 weeks maternity leave entitlements for those located in hardship duty stations.

According to Polane, the UN Secretariat is still working out how to implement the new parental leave policy, especially for those parents who became parents in 2022 and can access the leave retroactively. 

“The UN Secretary General in a recent town hall meeting with all staff indicated that he is still considering this issue, mostly since the General Assembly had indicated that the implementation needed to be carried out from within existing resources,” Polane said.

“For now, we are all waiting for the Secretary General to make a decision.” 

Debate over definition of “birthing mother/parent”

The term “birthing mother/parent” remains open to interpretation. 

At a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting of the executive board recently, member states were tasked with adopting a draft resolution changing WHO staff rules and regulations.

According to Jaimie Guerra, an external relations officer for WHO in Geneva, WHO’s initial proposal to use “birthing mother/parent” was not included in the UN’s latest parental leave decision, but rather an attempt by WHO to “be inclusive of all staff members in its policy making.”

“Birthing mother/parent” is understood to include all types of parents, including transgender and surrogate parents.

Countries including Russia and Ethiopia believe the WHO should retain the term “birth mother” in the parental leave policy, while countries such as the US want to change the term to “birthing mother/parent.”

The board has, for now, stuck to “birth mother”, though agreed to revisit the debate in the future “as necessary.

Alexander Pchelyakov, a spokesperson for the Russian diplomatic mission to UN institutions in Geneva, said that the term should be “birth mother” — the term used in the ICSC decision. 

The draft administrative instruction for the new policies is still being finalised by the UN Office of Human Resources. 

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