Australia

Abstract

Although Australian women's labour force participation has increased sharply since the turn of the century, there is a dichotomy between their participation at the pre pension threshold of 65 and after. Women's gender segregation in low waged occupations is institutionalised through the neoliberal policy of individual enterprise agreements, reinforcing gender wage gaps. In combination, the gendered health effects of caregiving, disrupted careers and the experience of precarity shorten working lives, limiting wages and retirement incomes, ultimately impacting on women's economic status and class. Some gender responsive initiatives through the courts have been instituted supporting flexibility requests to employers applied to workers over 50 and employment entitlements by workers employed as casuals. Yet the lack of proactive 'joined up' gender and age policies across multidimensional domains enables the contradiction between public policies of women's extending working lives and reality to persist.