15 December 2006
More paid parental leave needed for families with young children
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) President and Acting Sex Discrimination Commissioner John von Doussa QC has today welcomed survey data that sheds new light on how Australian families with young children are managing the demands of work and family.
The Parental Leave in Australia Study has been undertaken by the Universities of Queensland and Sydney through an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, supported by HREOC as an industry partner. The study draws on the experiences of 3,500 families with children born between March 2003 and February 2004 to fill a research gap identified by HREOC in the 2002 report A Time to Value: Proposal for a National Paid Maternity Leave Scheme.
"This is the first Australian study to provide a comprehensive analysis of the use of parental leave, including parental preferences and workplace responses to the needs of their employees with family responsibilities," Mr von Doussa said.
The study"s statistics complement the recently released Pregnancy and Employment Transitions survey undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in response to a recommendation of HREOC"s Pregnancy and Work Inquiry of 1999.
"The study"s findings highlight that nearly half (48 per cent) of all survey respondents said that better parental leave provisions would assist them, and that paid leave in particular was most helpful following the birth of a child," Mr von Doussa said.
Mr von Doussa said the survey results also reflect the community responses to HREOC"s current women, men, work and family project in that there is a growing desire among Australian men to share the hands-on care of their children. The study provides valuable data about men"s patterns of leave-taking - for example, 62 per cent of fathers take forms of paid leave other than paid paternity leave on the birth of their children.
"These findings reinforce the need for men and women, governments, employers and communities to work together to help Australian families strike a balance between their obligations to paid work and their caring responsibilities," Mr von Doussa said.
HREOC is currently finalising its final paper on women, men, work and family, which draws on the extensive public consultation conducted throughout 2005-06.
The Parental Leave in Australia Study results can be found at www.uq.edu.au/polsis/parental-leave.
Media contact: Louise McDermott (02) 9284 9851 or 0419 258 597
Last updated January 31, 2008
