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AIM Breakfast
Four Seasons Hotel
Sydney

Thursday 11 May 2006

• Audio and podcast

I hope you’re all enjoying your hot breakfasts and are extremely grateful for them. For a couple of reasons:

First- you didn’t have to cook them yourself, or, to be more precise, wash up all the dirty frying pans yourself. This is because you are working and you don’t have time to cook hot breakfasts for a particularly fussy group of consumers, your family. While they don’t seem to mind eating exactly the same fish and chips or Big Mac Happy Meal as the other kids when they’re out, it seems unconditional love means they are entitled to ask you for exactly what they want, and turn their noses up if it is not quite to their liking. No More Hot Breakfasts, unless it is Sunday morning and you have all day.

But having a hot breakfast when eating out is also a treat- it is cooked by someone else, and you are consuming it in the company of other people who are also pleased to be here and are not kicking the person next to them under the table or gagging because the egg’s too runny. These occasions are the privileges of working. It’s all part of networking and as we know is the only form of legitimate social activity recognised in the world of work.

It seems to me that the competing benefits and costs of work and home life, and the need to balance the one against the other are well summed up in the increasing trend for Australians to go out for hot breakfasts- even on weekends- but to get by with a piece of toast or a bowl of cereal and instant coffee when at home. Eating out is also a luxury of course; in the days of stay at home mums families or even couples rarely dined in restaurants at night, occasionally at lunch-and breakfasts were unheard of. The advent of the out-for-breakfast is still, to me, incredibly decadent, although it would be nice if they started at 9.15 instead of 7.15 and it is still off the agenda for those with children under five or over thirteen. The advent of two income families, while it undoubtedly put the squeeze on home life, has certainly helped drive the development of luxury services such as dining out. As the Prime Minister has often observed, the entry of working wives to the workforce constitutes Australia’s single biggest social change since the war and as economists observe they have also been the greatest contributors to rising family living standards since the 1970s.

But there is no doubt that work life balance is a trade off, a compromise and an issue of considerable debate. A barbecue stopper as the Prime Minister has also been wont to say, as he moves around the country listening to grandparents, middle aged children and parents all telling him how hard it is to find time for both, or suitable child care or transport or working arrangements.

The struggle for work-life balance is an epic struggle, where we fight the great Tyrant of Time, the unrelenting demands of modern life, the infinity of needs and the very definite limitations on our physical capacity. So long as there are only 24 hours in a day and our lives are finite, Tyrant Time will overshadow us.
There is no doubt that this modern struggle for balance is the result of more of us working than ever before, despite our considerable and deepening caring responsibilities. We are no longer struggling for more work, as our grandparents did, but for more time. How ironic that in the space of a life time, my life time, Australia could have gone from a country without enough work to one with too much.

Certainly life was less stressed when each family had a full time household CEO, carer for children, including adult disabled, elderly parents, cook, cleaner, personal servant,dog walker and tireless community worker. But life was also a lot poorer and, as researchers have reminded us, in fact there were many so called happy housewives who were bored, exploited, badly treated and survived by being stoned to the eyeballs on Valium.

There are four aspects to achieving work-life balance apart from the very personal considerations of temperament, health and ambitions.

These other aspects are what makes work life balance a political question, a public interest question.
They are all familiar to you;

• the expectations of men and women
• industrial arrangements
• government regulation and assistance
• national interest objectives.

Let me deal briefly with each.

The expectations we have, and people themselves have, of the roles and responsibilities of men and women are clearly major determinants of where we set out equilibrium points between work and life, work and family. Women in Australia do 70% of the unpaid caring work, men do 70% of the paid work. Even in households where women are in full time employment and their men are unemployed, she still does, on average, more housework than he does.

Women are 93% of custodial grandparents, 2/3 of them on pensions, the majority of child care provided by grandparents is provided by grandmas and don’t forget that grandparents provide 31% of all child care and 98% of that’s for free. When it comes to looking after elderly parents, 91% of that care, when its still at home, comes from daughters not sons, sisters and not their brothers.

And of course, women do most of the child rearing.

Men, on the other hand, work extraordinary hours, die seven younger, are twice as likely to die young as women, rarely get their children after separation and are mostly represented in the carer groups when it is caring for a disabled wife.

How much of that is genetic and how much enculturated is unclear, suffice it to say there must be some constrained choices in there.

These constraints show up in many conflicts between couples- where who does what and his long working hours are often blamed for marital conflict and under-achieving children.

Industrial arrangements are also important. Low skilled, low paid people who are not in great demand tend to manage their balance by choosing fewer hours or jobs at the right time with lower remuneration than other-wise. More valued workers can and do negotiate greater flexibilities like working from home, parental and carer’s leave and flexible start and finish times but I notice it’s much harder for them to get reduced hours. Usually working from home means you work more total hours, not less. Some workers are able to negotiate part time arrangements but this is much less likely at the professional and managerial ends; almost all part time work is in retail and hospitality. So again, striking the balance comes at a significant price for women. For men, my consultations suggest they don’t even dare ask. Employers and managers are not sympathetic to men who seek to reduce or modify their working arrangements for the sake of their families and men fear not just that they won’t be promoted but that they won’t keep their jobs.

Australian men are more likely to take bereavement leave than carer’s leave.

Government benefits and taxation also interact to affect the equilibrium point between work and family time. There are certainly work disincentives for second earners, usually women, when there is a trade off between working more and receiving smaller government benefits such as Family Assistance, although this week’s Budget has improved some of these taper rates.

The availability of child care subsidies and planning also affects working decisions, as does the availability of public transport, time taken to get to work on public roadways and so on.

The struggle between work and life, a modern day equivalent of the Bhagavad-Gita, is not expected to ease. Remember back in the eighties when we were so frightened of computers we started inventing leisure courses so people would know how to fill in all their spare time? What a misreading of human nature. In fact we have used computers to create even more work and life has never been busier.

But the pressures on people to care more, not less, are certainly emerging exactly at the same time as there is pressure on people to work more, not less. See this week’s Federal Budget.

The pressures to care more are not just about children who don’t like runny eggs hanging around until they are in their thirties, while they slave their way through university course after university course and save for a house. I’d like to think that today’s teenagers not only get to vote and drink on their 18^th birthdays but become responsible adults fairly sharing the household tasks, but the evidence is strongly against it.

But the roll on effect of inadequate or expensive child care is grandparent care, with the result that work life balance is now faced by the elderly as well as by prime age workers. Grandparents who frequently give up paid work or reduce their hours if their jobs do not enable them to combine with grandchildren care.

And this generation of grandparents may also have to care for their own elderly parents, thanks to our ever increasing life expectancy. We often describe these middle aged workers with children, or perhaps grandchildren to care for as well as their parents, as the triple decker sandwich generation. Most of these are women, but in an age of increasing only children, you can soon make this an issue for men also.

A third reason is globalisation and the incredible increase in competitive pressure brought about by free trade. It has brought great prosperity to many, but always at a price. People are expected to work longer and harder than ever before; trans national corporations require meetings at all hours, turn-arounds at all hours and that sense of pressure which comes from knowing your company is up against companies around the world. Middle managers, both in the public and private sectors, work ridiculous hours. Unless the world changes its mind about globalisation, I can’t see this changing.

Almost a quarter of the workforce works an average of 50 hours a week or more, and many of these workers are men with families.

The industrial reforms of the past fifteen years have enabled much of this. The sclerotic, industrial system of awards and centralised wage fixing has gradually been made more flexible by the addition of negotiated arrangements such as enterprise agreements which have certainly fuelled Australia’s economic growth over the past decade- and jobs with it.

But undoubtedly much of the productivity growth to come from this new industrial flexibility was the result of people being prepared to work longer hours, or less family friendly hours without penalty rates, or more uncertain hours as casuals or contract workers. That was all traded away against more money and, of course, more jobs.

Ah yes, the sanguine might say, but people adapt. Families adapt. This is just an adjustment phase. This may be true although I cannot see how relationship building, the development of love, trust and respect between family members, can simply be sped up to accommodate the requirements of work. Love takes time.

A further pressure will be the demographics of ageing.

How do we maintain, let alone increase the current size of the Australian work force in a future of low fertility and rapid ageing.

As you must know, in less than forty years time one in four of us will be over sixty five. On present trends we will be spending almost twice as much of our Gross Domestic Product on the old age pension as we do on Defence. South Australia currently has more than its share of aged people.

You might say that is no bad thing so try seeing it this way- Federal Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, a calm and collected man not known for panicking, has estimated that once you include health care, spending on aged care by the year 2042 will require a GST of 24 cents in the dollar.

It’s difficult to see Australia being able to pursue prosperity with so much of its wealth tied up in funding retirement, essentially in transfer benefits.
For this reason governments are keen to enable( using carrots and sticks) more Australians to work for longer. Not only to ensure their skills and training are retained for as long as possible in an era of stagnating growth in the labour force, but also to reduce reliance on old age pensions and state provided aged services.

We need to ensure older Australians are willing and able to work. At present Australians over the age of 55 don’t participate as much in paid work as older workers in other developed countries. This is especially true of women.

Only 40% of Australian women between 55 and 64 are in paid work, much lower than most of Europe and the US. Try Sweden where almost 80% of this age group works.

Much of this low participation rate I believe can be explained by the extensive caring responsibilities born by this group.
You could say this is the mindset of a particular generation except that we are talking about women leaving school in the swinging sixties, with expectations to match. I am part of that generation.

For this group of older workers, retaining them will not just be about superannuation benefits but about how well employers and society can enable them to keep working while meeting at least some of these caring responsibilities as well as their own changing personal and health needs. Looking after elderly parents is an increasingly vexatious issue for middle-aged children- workers. Every time an elderly parent is cared for by a family member, there is less pressure on the public purse and on the family’s finances. One way or another, the state ends up paying- either by providing the sorts of flexibilities that enable children to do it themselves or by ripping more taxes out of people to pay others to do the caring for them.

How do we persuade employers they are worth keeping, despite their other responsibilities, that there are possibilities other than full time retirement, how do we persuade employees to stay? Call centre or factory workers, for example, are unlikely to be bounding to work with unbridled enthusiasm day after day, year after year.

Interestingly, many businesses tell me it is older male managers in their sixties who are now as likely to seek part time work as young mothers. The ANZ is leading the way with part time work programmes for older workers, men and women, trying to hang on to all their skills and experience. Some want shorter days, some want shorter weeks- the most popular type of part time work for older workers is a shorter year- where they get to take 3 months or 6 months a year off unpaid but with their salary averaged over the full twelve months. Others want less responsibility and are prepared to drop pay- something many organisations find difficult to deal with.

Retaining these workers means providing working conditions that fit with their caring responsibilities as well as their retirement dreams. It need not be about caring responsibilities; it is always about life balance.

Of course much of our concern about funding aged care would not be so agitated were it not for our low fertility- the low number of future tax payers expected to support we baby boomers in our very lengthy old age.

And frankly I think part of our low fertility is a response to poor work-life balance. While it might be true that most of us find partners at work, it’s also true that work keeps us apart, that working hours frequently discourage intimacy and that the demands of work, and young women believing their work choices will not support their family choices, increasingly choosing to delay having children. Amongst high achievers and tertiary educated women, this problem is significant- and of course it is no accident that these are also sought after workers who work long hours. Surely if work-life balance were an acceptable, talked about and embraced life-objective, this choice need not be so stark. And it is not just an issue of childlessness, but of decreasing family size. Remember as from Tuesday night a family of three children is classified as large. Because when child care is expensive or non-existent, when working hours are long and unrelenting, why would women, having had one child and struggled, ever do it again. Perhaps that is why, in the space of a generation from 1980 to 2000, the number of only-child families has gone from one in five to one in three of all families and, if the demographers are right, you can make that one in two families living in our major cities.

Again, international evidence as well as some interstate demographic comparisons suggest that places which support women to work flexibly with children, financially support their working motherhood with benefits like paid maternity leave, have experienced improved fertility rates. Traditional countries such as Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany, on the other hand, have some of the lowest birth rates in the developed world. Where you force women to choose between work OR children, but not to have both, a significant number will choose work and no children.

Canberra, which has a very high percentage of women in work on the other hand, has a higher fertility rate than Melbourne and Sydney, arguably because public service flexibilities, short commuting times and reasonable child care make combining work and family much easier.

Let me finish by reflecting on my national project, Striking the Balance, women, men, work and family.

It is now in the final stages of being written. It is a big, comprehensive look at Australian family life and the impact of our paid but also unpaid responsibilities on that life. It finds, I believe, Australia at a cross roads. A wealthy country with jobs to burn and high living standards but increasingly stretched for time that money can’t buy but time that is priceless. The time we devote to our friends and our families. Now maybe Gen Y will work this out better and it will take care of itself, although every survey I have seen of young men and women confirms that young men, at least, believe they will continue to the bulk of the paid work and the caring will be their female partner’s responsibilities.

But our wealth, our education, our security and openness give us a great opportunity to rethink the work-life balance equation, because we can actually afford to. And what is more, our prosperity might even depend upon it. Prosperity requires work and workers. For Australia this means greater participation. Yet in order to increase the workforce without increasing the number of dependents, and in order to make better use of prime age skilled workers such as women who are currently lost in large numbers through motherhood, it will be necessary to develop a life-friendly work culture that not only attracts Australian women back to work, but attracts those from interstate and arguably from overseas. There is a world competition for skilled young workers who speak English and Australia will need to compete- by ensuring young women can do both and that older workers can also work flexibly.

Which brings us to the relationship between social sustainability and prosperity.

Social sustainability means peaceable, law abiding communities where people look out for and after one another, voluntarily and unpaid. It makes economic prosperity possible and also sustainable. Otherwise we spend the hard won gains of technological and economic change maintaining law and order, policing one another to protect people from the price of difference, keeping our families together only by frequent interventions from teachers, counsellors and an army of social workers.

But social sustainability takes time. It means parents joining school associations and raising funds, it means adult children with time to look after their parents and it means children being able to spend enough time with their families to grow up loved, guided and secure. It means the state investing in programmes and regulating in ways that aren’t always obviously connected to economic prosperity. It means recognising that prosperity is a balancing act. That you can’t have prosperity without respect and acknowledgement of the rights of men and women, young and old, of those of different races and creeds. That you can’t have prosperity without support for family life as well as good roads, education systems and first class research establishments.

And it means any community debate about work-life balance never losing sight of its ultimate goal, which is not, ultimately prosperity, fertility and global competitivenss, but the happiness and contentment of Australians.

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Audio and podcast

• Work Life Balance AIM breakfast address MP3 (26 MB, 27 minutes)
  
  

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