LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION OF OLDER WOMEN AND MEN: CAMOUFLAGING CARE?

摘要

Current policy and socio-economic developments appear to make labour force participation preferable or necessary for individual older workers, but engaging employers to promote this has been less successful (Kulik et al 2014). Gendered patterns of employment continue to be pronounced amongst older workers in Australia, with more men participating and for more hours than women despite stronger drivers for the retention or return of older women to the workforce, including age pension provisions being the same as men’s, having starkly lower superannuation balances, but with older cohorts increasingly likely to have similar education levels. This paper provides a critical gender analysis of Australian policy settings facilitating combining work and care and presents findings from empirical research with two private sector employers. The analysis focusses on how far government and organisational policies enable remaining in paid work whilst undertaking informal eldercare responsibilities, and whether a ‘care penalty’ exists for doing so.