Over the last two decades, especially after the GFC, we have seen a process of job polarisation. There has been growth in high end jobs, but mostly in low end jobs, the outcome of which has been the hollowing out of middle level jobs.
This hollowing out of the middle also relates to greater wealth polarisation, as French economist Thomas Piketty has brought to light.
The labour market is under a lot of pressure from many angles, so what does this mean for the project of women's equal opportunity in employment?
In Australia, as in many other countries, women have a very different employment profile from men. This has not changed much over decades. Over 54 per cent are concentrated in health care and social assistance, retail trade, education and training, and accommodation and food services industries, compared to just 22 per cent of the male workforce.
These are all sectors with the highest levels of workforce casualisation and high rates of underemployment. Altogether around 16 per cent of female workers (over 900,000) have no work or not enough work in Australia at present — 12.6 per cent for males, which is too high also.
As for many other countries there is also a significant gender pay gap, currently around 18 per cent for full time jobs. This is quite pronounced in the sectors where women dominate.
Equal opportunity endeavours are floundering in the second decade of the 21st century with too many women sequestered in low wage and insecure employment with insufficient hours of work. Research shows a strong entrapment effect for women in these jobs.
But what lies behind the hollowing out of the middle which affects women's employment so much? In my own research, I identified three core factors at play.
"It is not too much to say that there is a revolution in employment that does not bode well for equal opportunity aspirations. The question is: What can be done?"
The first relates to public sector contraction — austerity. Around 40 per cent of women's employment is directly or indirectly dependent on public funding particularly in education and training, health care and social assistance. Very large portions of employment in these sectors are now contract or casual arrangements due to long term government cutbacks. This was a key finding of the ACTU's Inquiry into Insecure Employment in 2012.
The second factor relates to the ascendancy of business models designed around disposable workforces linked to fluctuations in demand for goods and services. This affects core areas of women's employment of retail trade and accommodation and food services. But it also extends into public sectors such as education and training with teaching jobs in schools and universities linked to student numbers. New online employment platforms are also furthering this trend in the so-called 'gig economy'.
The third factor relates to the way employment itself is being modified by technologies of on-the-job monitoring and surveillance and work intensification. Professor Michael Marmot discussed this factor in his recent Boyer lectures in relation to a man in a warehouse who had to wear a device that monitored his output. I have also interviewed women with this experience. These factors mean that job performance is highly controlled with very high demands — work intensification — that give employers the opportunity to dispose of workers by simply increasing the output demands.
It is not too much to say that there is a revolution in employment that does not bode well for equal opportunity aspirations. The major question then is: What can be done? Based on the analysis above, I identify three sets of changes in public policy and labour law that are needed at this time.
The first imperative relates to accountability of governments, and action to ameliorate the far-reaching effects of public sector contraction — austerity — across core sectors of women's employment — not only in the public and government funded sectors, but also in feminised private industry sectors which can take advantage of women's weakened bargaining position in employment in relation to casualisation and degraded work conditions.
The second imperative is in the area of social policies, which need to focus on getting people into decent jobs and desist in taking the low road of enforcing placement in low quality, precarious jobs, as is the case in current welfare-to-work regimes.
The third imperative is in the area of labour law. At present, there are no protections against long term entrapment in casual employment in Australia. These arrangements need to be curtailed through strict conversion to permanent employment after a period of time, and the application to casual and dependent contract workers of the full suite of labour standards including leave entitlements and protections against dismissal.
This may seem a strange list of imperatives to improve women's employment position but they are in effect among the most important for the restoration of those much-needed middle level jobs.
Dr Veronica Sheen is an independent social researcher and commentator. The article draws from a paper she delivered at a conference on the future of work at the International Labour Organisation in Geneva in 2015.
This is the latest article in our ongoing series on work.