pocock

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A sustainable work and family future in Australia: Balancing family, state regulation and market-based solutions Barbara Pocock School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide

Sustainable lives over the life cycle: 

Sustainable lives over the life cycle Humans depend on various forms of material sustenance: Care in early months and years, and when sick, frail or disabled, aged Increasingly commodified How to facilitate social reproduction and social cohesion? Sources of sustenance? Family Market Public sphere Let’s call them forms of ‘familism’

What Sustains Us?: 

What Sustains Us? Private Familism Market Familism Public Familism

Sources of ‘familism’: 

Sources of ‘familism’ ‘the relations and practices that sustain us ‘ Not the family alone But defined to include the private family (‘private familism’) as well as other sources of sustenance Define the ‘private family’ as the household ‘Generations of care’ (Cass) Many forms: nuclear, heterosexual, sole person, sole parent with kids, group household Where the relations and practices are usually uncommodified, and include material practices of care as well as reciprocal, intimate, loving and other exchanges

Private family: 

Private family Not assumed to be a benign place or without inequalities We know of it as a place of sustenance, reproduction, support and love, but also abuse, inequality, violence, hierarchy, enmeshed relations, entrapment, dependence A constant modern/post-modern dialectic between individual family autonomy enmeshment

But…: 

But… Despite the powerful critique of the traditional family, very few (including most feminists) manage to construct households that are very different The family - broadly defined - has a powerful hold on most Australians, even those who have written its most vigorous critiques And it cannot be left to be discursively manipulated by those who are increasingly panicked into bolstering its traditional form in the face of its actual, practical, morphing versatility

Family matters: Identity constructed through family: 

Family matters: Identity constructed through family A place where identity is made (three-quarters of respondents to 2003 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes nominated family or marital status as amongst top 3 ways of describing themselves Occupation came next: 55% put it in top 3

So my purpose: 

So my purpose To better understand conceptually the relationships and practices that sustain us To empirically understand their changing nature And their location in a changing political economy To understand, in order to change public policy - which underpins lived experience - for the better

What sustains us?: 

What sustains us? Private familism Sustenance found within the boundaries of the private household Food, care, housing Uncommodified, reciprocal Market familism Sustenance purchased from the market Food, care, housing Commodified, non-reciprocal Public familism Sustenance provided by the state, employers, charity, civic and community organisation Food, care, housing Uncommodified, non-reciprocal This is basically Esping Anderson’s components of welfare capitalism, incorporating feminist critique

Most societies can be located along a 3-D ‘forms of familism’ spectrum: 

Most societies can be located along a 3-D ‘forms of familism’ spectrum market family public sphere

Private familism: 

Private familism The care undertaken in the household Food, care, clothing, cleaning, transport, shopping management of home and its inhabitants emotional support, intimacy, cooperativeness, reciprocity, love Self-care and care of others in household In short, reproduction

Private Familism: 

Private Familism

Private familism: 

Private familism Straining to sustain Growth of dual earner Time poor, reproducing The sandwich generation The ‘minimal’ family… …where women struggle to ‘make up’ care by intensifying work effort Intensified private familism Shrinking private familism

Public Familism: 

Public Familism

Public familism: 

Public familism The provision of sustaining support by: The state (labour law, childcare, aged care, education, health, food, housing, direct income in moments of transition) Employers (health, education, childcare, housing, transport, counselling…) Charities, philanthropic action, union supports Community organisations, non-household relations (neighbours, friends, extended non-household family)

Role of Labour law in Australia’s ‘public familism’: 

Role of Labour law in Australia’s ‘public familism’ Historically very significant A living family wage 1907-1970s A living individual wage, 1970s-? Reductions in length of working week 1856-1990s Premium for working unsocial time (shifts, overtime, nights) to limit Award/occupational standards to 1991 Wage compression: ‘Fairness’ embodied in rate for job, not power of individual worker Job/wage security Redundancy pay Paid annual leave Paid sick/personal carers leave Long service leave Unpaid maternity/parental leave

Public Familism:collective bargaining, occupational standards and arbitration, ‘work and family’ minima, social ‘reasonable’ working hours. : 

Public Familism: collective bargaining, occupational standards and arbitration, ‘work and family’ minima, social ‘reasonable’ working hours.

Public Familism:working time A porous Australian working time regime: 

Public Familism: working time A porous Australian working time regime

Public Familism: Common social time, celebration, commemoration, public holiday: 

Public Familism: Common social time, celebration, commemoration, public holiday

Public familism:decommodification of labour through benefits like UB, support for sole parents, job security rights, permanency: 

Public familism: decommodification of labour through benefits like UB, support for sole parents, job security rights, permanency

Public familism: 

Public familism Underdeveloped in Australia: patchy, missing, or poor (eg parental leave, childcare) Contracting, as the market expands Employers not eager to expand workplace ‘familism’ Changing industrial regime - contraction in living wage, non-wage conditions, contraction in leave, non-work hours, expansion in long and unsocial hours, job and income security Welfare system also contracting (sole-mothers) Private provision of education, care, health all encouraged by state under rubric of ‘choice’ Under threat as population ages: an impossible burden of rising dependency rates? Who can they depend on?

Market familism: 

Market familism www.umass.edu/rso/objectiv/links.htm

Market ‘Familism’: 

Market ‘Familism’ An expansive, hungry market eager to care, to profit from care To sell care, food, housing and all forms of domestic substitutes, hence, ‘rent a hubby’, ‘rent a wife’… Commodification of all material products and most services including many emotional and intimate services (counseling, therapy, sex, massage, and relationship connection, remediation and salvage) Commodification of many private familial events (presents, events, parties, celebrations, and the sale of love embodied in products like margarine, cars, childcare…) Drives debt upwards Expansion of market-provided education, health, childcare, aged care…

A changing balance of private, public and market familism: 

A changing balance of private, public and market familism Private familism: intensified minimal family (Dizard and Gadlins (1990) The Minimal Family) Growth in nuclear family, decline in geographically accessible extended family, overwhelming effect of growth in dual-earner family where dependents exist Retarded nature of public familism in Australia A neo-liberal welfare tradition Retarded leave regime for working carers A wage-earner sustenance regime Current changes thin a retarded system even further An expansive market familism has expanded into these gaps

What Sustains Us?: 

What Sustains Us? Private Familism Market Familism Public Familism

So, from this….: 

So, from this…. Private Familism Market Familism Public Familism

…to this: 

…to this Private Familism Market Familism Public Familism

What’s wrong with market familism?: 

What’s wrong with market familism? Supply Gaps: The market cannot supply all that the household can (love, support, reciprocity, intimacy, reliability) An engine for inequality: Market relies on $$$: where dollars are distributed unequally, market-familism generates an expansive spiral of inequality Hyper-commodification: Market solutions require greater commodification of labour. More time into paid labour (each week, and over the life cycle), means further shrinkage of the minimal family, and more intensification of its feminised efforts

Market familism: 

Market familism An expansive ‘work/spend’ cycle as women join men in their ‘work fetish’ without enough support in private households, or enough public familism (eg through labour law, public supports like childcare) Work feeds as it eats us Paid work generates both positive and negative spillover for those who depend on workers (eg children, especially from long and unsocial hours, lack of holidays) Guilt drives further commodification, seeking relief. Market very alive to its possibilities - guilt sells

Market familism: 

Market familism Early life-cycle commodification, hyper-inequality Case of childcare Cost to family budget Corporatisation New momentum to work/spend Case of youthful work/consumption - early onset work/spend cycle Young people’s plans More work Children ‘Self through stuff’ Engine of advertising

What is Needed?: 

What is Needed? Relief for, and facilitation of, private familism Expansive public familism Careful management and containment of market familism… Containment of inequality

Expansive private familism: 

Expansive private familism Sustaining, expanding and relieving intensified, feminised, private familial care in the minimal family Supporting the dual and 1.5 earner household through quality part-time work Greater community supports for carers at home, especially mothers of babies Sustaining standards underpinning commodified labour (living wage, sustainable working hours. job predictability, leave) more time sovereignty for workers Life cycle approaches to work and care and their combination (through leave, ‘banking’ of time and money, contributory insurance programs)

Expansive public familism: 

Expansive public familism More leave for workers to sustain households around work Quality, accessible, affordable childcare and aged care Benefits’ systems that permit the decommodification of the labour of children, carers, aged, disabled, sick and infirm, and worn out workers, as well as when training and retraining Benefits/income systems covering key transitions and weaknesses in private familism (eg on divorce, in labour market transitions, for carers)

Constrained and managed market familism: 

Constrained and managed market familism That manages and prevents widening inequality The case of childcare: an expansive, early on-set spiral of inequality? Constraining the market by managing Standards Advertising Ensures high level minimal standards and access, regardless of income.