Australia’s Women Have a Part-Time Problem
With one of the highest rates of females working part-time in the developed world, the nation is is failing to tap its greatest resource.
Australia is failing to tap its greatest resource: women.
Photographer: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
Tapping one of the world’s most-educated female workforces should be a priority for Australia’s government. Yet more women work part-time here than in almost any other developed nation. It’s a missed opportunity to jump-start a once-lauded economy that’s languishing.
On one hand, the prevalence of part-time jobs shows employers offer flexibility to keep women — who still do the bulk of juggling family and other carer responsibilities — in the workforce. On the other, it stops them from getting the same career breaks as men and costs them dearly, both in earnings and retirement.