When I'm not busy making my contribution to the continuation of our species, I'm busy being a drain on our economy (or so the headlines would have you believe).
A new OECD report has been lampooned as undervaluing the contribution of stay-at-home mothers. Frankly, it is a report on labour force participation (in the sense of participation in formal employment that results in the earning of a wage); it is not a report seeking to evaluate the contribution stay-at-home-mothers make to society.
What is the economic value of raising children who make fewer visits to the GP – bulk-billed at the taxpayers' expense – because they don't get sick at childcare? Children who go to school already able to read and not requiring additional assistance?
Long-term, what is the potential impact on a person of having spent their very early years with loving relatives able to give them one-on-one attention every day rather than carers in a childcare centre? (This, by the way, must not be read as critical of families who rely on childcare through choice or necessity – it is simply an enumeration of possible benefits that stay-at-home mothers (or fathers) offer the economy.)
The report contends that work is important for women's personal wellbeing and perceptions of their overall quality of life. It would perhaps have been more accurate to say that work outside the home (insofar as mothering is work) can be important for these things (we've all had jobs that have gnawed away at our wellbeing and perceptions of our quality of life).
The report also states that according to OECD projections, GDP would grow 20 per cent over the next two decades if labour force participation rates among women in OECD countries reached male levels. What a statistic like this neglects to acknowledge is that male levels of labour force participation are facilitated by women who – for no doubt myriad reasons that do not always result from choice – leave the labour force either for a period, or permanently, in order to raise children. To put it another way, when I return to work my husband will decrease his labour force participation because we are committed to genuinely shared parenting.
More positively, the report acknowledges that young Australian women are well-educated in comparison with young Australian men, but that the impact of having children on labour market participation usually affects women more than men, particularly when children are young (as the report states, traditional gender roles and patterns as well as maternity and parental and home care leave entitlements affect this).
If my husband had been entitled to two months' parental leave, as men in Sweden are, he'd have taken it and I'd have returned to work earlier and for more hours. As the report acknowledges, in countries such as Belgium, Iceland, France, Sweden and Denmark, longer working hours of mothers are supported through comprehensive childcare and pre-school services for under-school-age children and out-of-school-hours care services for school-aged children.
Much has been made of the report's contention that mothers are an untapped potential in the formal Australian labour force. We are an untapped potential. We are talented, we are hard workers, we are multitaskers and we are often highly educated with years of professional experience behind us. Yet we face significant barriers to re-entry into the formal labour force in the form of high childcare costs and lack of access to truly flexible work arrangements. It is patently obvious that more must be done to facilitate our re-entry on terms that are acceptable to us and our families.
Catherine Williams is a new mother and recent PhD graduate.
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