Work-and-Care Initiatives: Flaws in the Australian Regulatory Framework

Abstract

The Australian labour law system was founded at the turn of the twentieth century upon a set of gendered breadwinner assumptions regarding work and care. Those gendered assumptions were formally displaced in Australia from the 1970s onwards, with a raft of legal entitlements developed over the subsequent forty or so years. Yet it is clear that many workplaces in Australia do not accommodate, and, indeed, are even hostile to, pregnant women, mothers, and other workers with substantial care responsibilities. This article reveals four themes of the Australian regulatory framework that together explain the inadequacies of the current work-and-care schemes in Australia.