Permanent part-time work: rewriting the family wage settlement?

Despite women’s increased participation in Australian labour markets, the gender norms of the twentieth century family wage settlement have still not been superseded. The gender wage differentials of full-time employment, and the allocation of social welfare, have shifted a little from the male breadwinner/female caregiver model. Nevertheless, full-time hours remain a sticking-point. A gendered full-time/part-time work divide is emerging, in a context where labour markets and their regulation have fragmented. Bargaining models based on “individual choice” allow accommodations, rather than solutions, to the time/income bind. In this context, permanent part-time work, like the earlier family wage, seems to offer the best achievable resolution of the conflicting time demands of work and family life, together with a measure of income security. Whilst still locked in the gender norms of the family wage era, permanent part-time work can only be one of a coordinated range of strategies for working towards a successor settlement.