Household patterns in Australia are changing. A quarter are now single- person households, and in many families couples work while they have children at home. At the same time, activities that were once the province of women at home are increasingly provided by the market, and some forms of market work are now done at home, or in new ways. And men’s participation in market work has steadily declined, while women’s has increased.

According to Barbara Pocock, Director of the Centre for Labour Research at Adelaide University, these changes have not been mirrored in compensating changes in the workplace and related institutions. This creates a ‘collision’ between the changing and unchanging spheres.

Pocock examines this in her book The Work/Life Collision. She uses the results of qualitative surveys on work and households from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey (Melbourne Institute 2002), illustrated with personal voices.

The most potent illustration of the work/life collision is the position of mothers. Pocock argues that there are ‘mother wars’ between working and stay-at-home mothers, with many mothers from both groups feeling criticised for the ‘choice’ they made. She also looks at why some mothers feel like they have to go back to work despite feeling guilty about it.

Pocock reports that changing work practices, especially longer working hours, are making it more difficult to sustain loving relationships. Women are frustrated at not being able to satisfactorily fulfil the roles of paid worker, partner, mother and domestic worker on an ongoing basis, and there is considerable tension around the issue of housework.

As well as affecting love and intimacy, long hours have other consequences for families. The book contains disturbing stories of stressed husbands, wives who build peripheral paid work around their partner’s long hours and children who hardly ever see their fathers.

Pocock examines a number of regulatory options to deal with the long hours issue, such as reducing standard weekly hours, preventing unpaid overtime and expanding other forms of leave. However, these need to be supported with acceptance from employers, who may need to take on extra staff, and workers, who may have to accept a pay cut.

People with caring responsibilities often find part-time work provides a solution, but this introduces other issues. Part-time work is becoming more common, but is often linked to poor job security, lower rates of benefits such as training, less opportunities for promotion, and extra unpaid hours.

Working part-time is often not a choice but a necessity because of lack of access to childcare. Pocock believes minimal changes from employers such as giving some flexibility in hours, days, and shifts may help carers cope with unpredictable family needs, but this will require a big mind shift on the part of employer groups and traditionally male-dominated unions.

The biggest collision between work and care exists when a child or dependent is sick. The personal stories show the difficulties parents face when their children are sick, especially when they don’t have family support. If such situations are satisfactorily resolved, this usually results in reduced stress for the employee, higher commitment, lower turnover and less loss of human capital.

Finally, Pocock looks at possible solutions to these problems in Australia, in the context of a society where there is strong institutional resistance to women returning to the workforce. She suggests the adoption of a more life-cycle approach to labour, with more integration of paid work and caring responsibilities, and more choice. She also suggests that the culture of long hours should be addressed with more quality part-time work.

As well as being of interest to the policy makers, this book provides a good insight to the problems faced by workers with caring responsibilities, and makes valuable suggestions to employers about increased job flexibility.

Work/Life Collision: What work is doing to Australians and what to do about it
by Barbara Pocock, The Federation Press, Sydney, 2003