Do you want to? Or do you have to?
Around 60% of women worked part-time or on a casual basis in 2020-21. Women made up only two out of every five full-time employees.
It’s natural for women to work less when they take time off to have children and then assume the position of primary caregiver when the child grows older.
Women also do a greater percentage of unpaid housework and other unpaid care obligations, such as caring for elderly parents, according to surveys.
According to the 2016 Census, more than half of working men (60%) conducted no or only a few hours of unpaid household work each week, compared to a third of employed women (36 per cent).
An ABS study conducted during pandemic lockdowns in May of last year came up with a similar result. It was discovered that 62% of women spent five or more hours on unpaid interior chores in the previous week, compared to 35% of men.
Women also took on more caring tasks than men, spending five or more hours in the previous week on unpaid child care or supervision (38 percent of women vs. 28 percent of men), adult care (16 percent vs. 7%), and cooking and baking (38 percent of women vs. 28 percent of men) (64 per cent compared with 37 per cent).
These are some of the key reasons why women are less likely to advance in an organization to positions where they can earn more money.
Should women, on the other hand, be penalized for undertaking so much unpaid work?
Why is it that a mother caring for her children has no monetary worth, while a woman hiring others to look after her children does?