Valuing today's families today
Pru Goward
Federal
Sex Discrimination Commissioner
22
May 2003
Senator Stott Despoja’s Women’s breakfast
Lyrics
Room, Adelaide Festival Centre
King William Road, Adelaide
- Senator
Natasha Stott Despoja – thank you for hosting today’s event.
-
Democrats spokesperson on the Status of Women, Senator for South Australia, Ladies
and Gentlemen.
- Thank
you for inviting me here today.
- It
is with great pleasure that I address this luncheon.
-
The Democrats support for paid maternity leave and the tireless work of Senator
Stott Despoja and the entire party on this issue gives them great credit in the
debate.
-
And in those despairing moments – such as last Tuesday evening, budget night,
and last Thursday, The Budget in reply (which matched the Governments’ commitment),
– it is encouraging to know that at least a few remain committed to the
cause.
-
It is on this topic, paid maternity leave, that I have been asked to speak today.
- It is
a topic that over the last year has grabbed much media space, public debate and
political attention.
-
Where did this come from?
-
In part it’s because we’ve all been struggling with work and family
and finally it found its voice in a policy ideal.
- This
debate found a new focus in April last year when I released my interim paper on
this issue.
-
The Democrats’ proposed paid maternity leave legislation was the first time
in Australia parliament had to consider the issue, and was another important step
in advancing public awareness.
-
The final paper, which I provided to the Government last December, recommended
a government funded benefit of up to the minimum wage for women who had been in
paid work for fourteen weeks, to enable them to stay at home after childbirth.
- The minimum
wage was at the times $431 per week (it is now $448).
-
That recommendation was strongly endorsed by the Democrats and I would like to
take this opportunity to thank them for this support.
-
It was a very modest recommendation.
- I
proposed that women who received this benefit would not receive others and some
may even choose not to take the paid leave.
-
The net cost of the scheme was calculated at $213million a year; this would have
to be the cheapest family support programme in the country.
- It’s
also one of the most debated!
-
Can you remember having your say on the half a billion dollar baby bonus, or the
$8 billion Family Tax rebates, Child Care subsidies, or even the 1993 Maternity
Allowance measure?
-
No, this scheme however, the community has pulled to pieces and put back together
again several times. It seemed to trouble some people in a moral way, that other
policies do not.
- Let’s
briefly consider those issues that seemed to cause the most concern.
- First
came the problem of who would fund it.
-
This seemed so hard; both government ministers and I said that business should
not have to pay many times over - although nobody had ever said they should.
- Paid maternity
leave is paid for to by governments – either through direct funding or social
insurance scheme contributions - in every OECD country in the world, except the
United States. Even there it may be provided at the state government level. There’s
also Switzerland, the tiny country with tiny taxes, where business pays for maternity
leave directly.
- If
it works in the rest of the world, and has done so for decades, you have to ask
why can’t it work here?
-
If other taxpayers can afford it, why can’t ours?
-
That begged a further question - why should the state pay for a woman who makes
a personal choice to have a baby?
- Older
women who had their children without paid leave were especially vocal. They didn’t
get it, why should these women?
-
Well there’s one basic reason why they did not get it, why we did not get
it - until twenty years ago, very few women worked with children, or even when
pregnant.
-
You told the office you were expecting, put on your big spotty dress with the
frilly white collar and disappeared for several XX.
-
By contrast today, it’s estimated that 40% of children are born to women
in paid work. That’s a big change in a generation.
-
But that doesn’t mean that a generation ago we did not support those women
and their families (and that includes me!).
-
Australia has always supported families; subsidized home loan rates, unmeans-tested
child endowment, tax deductible school fees, family allowances. We led the world
at the turn of the Century.
- Last
financial year, the Australian Government spent $17billion supporting families.
Nobody complains about subsidizing a personal choice because there is a great
national benefit – happier children and happier parents.
- We
need to continue this support, but let’s do it in a manner relevant to today.
- And today,
the number one need for that vast number of women who work - before they have
their children - is time, time off when the baby is born. We’re all chasing
time.
- Paid
for time, so they are not forcing themselves back to work before their Caesarian
sections are healed or while the baby still has them up three times a night.
- Next the issue
of why working mothers, why not mothers who are not in paid work as well?
- The fact is
that mothers who do not work already receive $3.1 billion in non means tested
government benefits and more, once means tested benefits and parenting payments
are included.
-
It’s not even true that working mother families are wealthier – 70%
of low income families have working mums!
- The
point about paid maternity leave is there is a condition attached to it- you have
to stay at home with your baby. You cannot get the payment and go back to work.
You have to be a full time mother. That’s why I say it’s “conservative”.
- For women
not in the workforce, staying at home with the baby is not an issue. They may
have other issues and there are other programs and policies to deal with them.
This is how the United Kingdom deals with its different groups of mothers.
- Time together
is good for all babies and all mothers, that’s what this proposal aims to
do.
-
Why then this issue should be so divisive, so hard, remains a mystery to me.
- Perhaps it
is because the discussion around the introduction of a national scheme of paid
maternity leave has become more than just a public debate about a very modest
social policy measure.
-
It has become representative of a huge demographic challenge for Australia.
- Foremost,
the challenge of who will have our children.
-
Every year, slightly fewer women of child-bearing age in Australia, as elsewhere,
decide to have children.
-
The current fertility rate is 1.7. It is continuing to fall.
-
Our necessary replacement rate is 2.1.
- Men
as well as women are choosing not to have children.
- A
recent study confirmed that men are deferring parenthood to an even later age
than women – if they become parents at all - 68 per cent of men aged between
30-34 had not fathered a child by 30.
-
Current fertility projections suggest there will be more dependants than workers
by the middle of the century. An economic meltdown!
- But
we do not have to wait that long for problems to set in. The Australian workforce
is set to decline in real numbers in 2005- 07.
- Why
does fertility matter to the Sex Discrimination Commissioner?
- Because
this is what happens when you tell women they can top the law class or the technical
college certificate course, that they can have that job on the assembly line and
take out a loan on a car and buy their own home unit and then tell them they have
to throw it all away when they have children – unless their partner can
afford to support them.
- But
it is more than just this.
- There
are a variety of economic, biological and social changes contributing to this
paradigm shift – the shift to smaller families, later in life, if at all.
- First-
education and training periods are longer, meaning earning capacity begins later
in life for most young men and women.
-
A third of people aged 20-24 are still in higher education – unheard of
in previous generations.
- Next,
having spent those years and that money on getting an education or other qualifications,
young women are understandably reluctant to trade this all in for ten years at
home, knowing how hard it will be to pick up a job or career again at the end
of it. To say nothing of their desire for independence, for choices, for security
in their retirement years.
- Then,
the nature of work has changed. Few young people enter the workforce with permanent
full time jobs the Bank is going to lend money for a home on.
- Contract
and project work is very common, 45% of Australian workers do not have permanent
jobs, with the consequence that not only do home mortgage lenders feel understandably
uncertain about the young couple’s prospects, but so does the young couple!
- Most
families today need two incomes to survive. Sure, one parent might only need to
work part time, but work they both do.
- It’s
not about saving up for the overseas family holiday, if indeed it ever was.
- Today the
majority of women will have to work part or full time for at least part of their
parenting years.
-
Why? Because the real cost of living is high. In particular, housing affordability,
Australia-wide, has declined by 29% within the space of a generation. You need
two incomes to carry the mortgage on the slum of your dreams, forget the 4 bedroom
mansion with the spa bath and optional pool room!
- The
average Sydney mortgage equals half the average weekly earnings. In Melbourne
try 27% of average weekly earnings.
-
Risk management is emerging as another major reason why we now have two income
families, even when the children are less than a year old.
-
The risk of divorce, first of all, and, increasingly significant, the risk of
temporary unemployment for the primary income earner.
- Currently
Australia’s divorce rate is just under 50% over a thirty year period, meaning
that for 50% of families, the second income earner at some stage MUST become the
primary income earner, at least for herself if not herself and her children.
- In defacto
relationships, the break-up rate, even with children, is even higher.
- Yes,
we can work harder at keeping marriages together, but in the mean time, we need
to address the consequences when divorce does occur.
- Despite
Australia’s outstanding child support system, it remains the case that divorce
means poverty for women who have not worked in the period before separation.
- The high
percentage of single women on supporting parents’ pensions in Australia
compared with overseas suggests we just have not faced up to this reality nearly
well enough.
-
This welfare dependence is compounded in the years that follow and results in
their greater dependence on welfare for the last part of their lives.
-
Risk management of job uncertainty is a further compelling reason for the two
income family.
-
Where once skilled workers at least could be confident of continuous employment,
downsizing, restructuring, mergers and the need to be internationally competitive
means that for many, periods of unemployment are to be expected. 42% of workers
today are in a job for less than 2 years.
-
Families need to spread that risk by having two in work, not just one.
- Low
wage families have always needed to do this- now the middle class is in the same
boat.
-
So we have no choice but to support families in a meaningful and relevant way
because families have no choice.
-
It’s not about selfishness or personal greed on the part of young men and
women.
-
It’s about being able to work and have a family.
-
Our task as a community is to make this choice viable for them.
- Paid
maternity leave alone will not make it possible for women to do both.
-
But no one has ever suggested that any one policy alone can or make it possible
for people to combine work and family.
- Every
western country in the world that’s trying to facilitate the choice of women
to have children has done so by providing a package of work and family measures.
- And
there is no package that does not include Paid maternity leave. It is a must-have.
- Let’s
consider why.
-
Providing 14 weeks of income replacement may, for a start, mean that a couple
is able to have that second child or bring forward their decision to have a child
by even one year.
- Believe
me, couples save for the baby- they save her annual leave, their long service
leave, they pay ahead on their mortgages, they go without holidays.
- They
do that the first time, for the first child.
-
For many it is impossible to do it again.
- Perhaps
that’s why a third of all families now are only child families. Twenty years
ago is was a fifth!
-
Paid maternity leave will also allow women the time needed directly after the
birth of a child to recover physically from childbirth and establish a feeding
routine without being forced to return to work to pay the rent.
-
Fourteen weeks is a pitifully short time to be off work but, as a minimum government
provision, it is a good start.
- Then
there is the challenge of fostering labour force participation and economic growth.
- At the moment,
without paid maternity leave being provided across the board, women often find
themselves in a different line of work following the birth of a child.
-
They may go from leading their field in IT to a part time job in a less skilled
area – but one that offers more ‘family friendly’ hours.
- The hospitality
and retail industries for example, characterised by casual hours and shift work
are dominated by students and mothers.
- Conclusive
evidence, from a number of OECD countries, suggests that providing a universal
paid maternity leave scheme enhances female labour force attachment - in most
countries, mothers are back at work by the time the child is aged three.
- It
is certainly the British experience, where paid maternity leave, even government-funded,
encourages many women to return to work, at least part time.
- Third,
there is the challenge of addressing workplace disadvantage.
-
Women lose their immediate income, often jeopardise career prospects and reduce
their lifetime earnings when they leave the workforce to have children.
- According
to the Graduate Careers Council of Australia, a female law graduate can expect
a starting salary averaging $2,500 less than her male counterpart (who begins
on a salary of approximately $34,500). This differential factors in her mere ability
to bear children.
- Should
she actually go on to have one child, she can expect to forgo $239,000 in life
time earnings.
-
Without denying the wonderful rewards of bearing and raising children, this income
loss directly contributes to women being three times more likely to be welfare
recipients than men; women on average female earnings retire on one and a half
times the aged pension, for men it is three times the aged pension.
- While
paid maternity leave cannot make up for this loss of income over a lifetime it
does provide some form of income replacement.
-
Paid maternity leave is also iconic.
-
It is social and industrial recognition from the rest of us that yes, women both
work and have children. It stops it being her dirty little secret.
-
It recognises the non-work related responsibilities of half of the people in the
workforce.
-
Recognising paid maternity leave as an industrial entitlement does not mean that
employers have to pay but it means employees are entitled to receive it.
-
So what do I think is today’s state of play?
- Although
the Government has publicly said that a national paid maternity leave scheme is
under consideration, the 2003 budget did not deliver. It is a long gestation.
- Certainly,
they see it as part of a bigger package of work and family measures, but we have
no time frame for that package or its likely contents.
- In
the meantime regrettably, Australian women have no choice but to pursue the issue
in an arena where there will be action.
-
An Industrial solution is to be sought by the ACTU. They are expected to bring
a test case later this year.
- Australian
women will join this action – at least as an interim measure – if
they want to see paid maternity leave now.
- Although
my final report advised against employer-funded leave, it is for now, the only
option.
- Because
we’re running out of time – we must value work and family –
and providing paid maternity leave is a good point at which to start.
Thank you.
Last
updated 2 June 2003.
