13 May 2009

Women are low paid because their work is not valued
Issued by: House of Representatives Liaison & Projects Office

“Some commentators have argued that the pay equity problem can be explained by the fact that women work less hours and that they work in low paid jobs. While women do work less hours, the nub of the problem is that they are low paid because their work is not properly valued” is one of the key points made by the National Pay Equity Coalition (NPEC) and the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) in their joint submission to the House of Representatives Employment and Workplace Relations Committee’s inquiry into pay equity and associated issues related to increasing female participation in the workforce.

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Eva Cox, Chair of WEL
At last- we have a government committing to paid parental leave! This is the real good news: the government is prepared to acknowledge a clear unequivocal financial relationship between the workplace and parenting. This is the first time that there will be a specific publicly funded program that makes the connection explicit. We have had programs directed to reinforce the ‘choice’ of non working mothers, such as Family Tax Benefit B but not those in paid work, as even the child care funding also covers those who are not employed.This connection needs to be celebrated as a basic shift in the political perception of legitimate time off for the care of others. It has been a long time coming as shown by two near misses; one under Keating and another the Baby Bonus, Both converted a maternity leave possibility into a welfare payment for all mothers. This time it is clearly labelled leave and has a workforce entitlement component. Hooray!
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