Childcare abuse crisis threatens to reverse a decade of women's economic progress
Revelations of abuse at childcare centres are threatening to reverse a decade of hard-fought gains for working mothers.
But now, horrific abuse revelations at childcare centres threaten to wipe much of that progress out and as women, we will let it.
This isn’t just a crisis of trust that’s dominated news headlines; it’s an economic equity torpedo headed primarily at working mothers, who perform 70 per cent of the nation’s unpaid primary caring.
Already the numbers are troubling.
Women’s full-time employment fell 1.3 per cent in September from a historic high in July of just over 4 million. Over the same period, the number of women in part-time employment rose by 1.3 per cent. By contrast, male full-time and part-time employment was steady at 0.2 per cent.
In the Melbourne West region (among the areas where a childcare worker was charged with more than 70 sexual offences in July), the female labour force participation rate fell from 67.2 per cent to 65.9 per cent in August. In the same period, the male participation rate rose from 76.5 per cent to 78.6 per cent, according to ABS data.
“The current childcare crisis goes to the heart of women’s decisions to participate in the paid workforce,” says Leonora Risse, associate professor in economics at the University of Canberra.
“Even if the numbers show women are pulling out of the workforce, what they don’t show is the extra emotional and mental strain as well as the potential guilt that many parents who are compelled to work would be going through.”
While the crisis has sparked widespread fear, Georgie Dent, chief executive of The Parenthood, cautions that “technically 90 per cent of services” are meeting or exceeding the standards. But the issues run deep: a lack of regulation, broken ratings system, for-profit-driven agendas, low wages for workers and high turnover rates.
For some working parents, the anxiety is too much. The latest Department of Education data shows 10,000 families stopped using childcare between the March and June quarters, and 20,500 children were withdrawn from childcare services.
A survey by the Minderoo Foundation found one in 10 parents has withdrawn their child from care, and 16 per cent reduced the hours of care in the wake of the abuse scandals.
“It is definitely fair to say it has had an impact,” says Dent. “Operators I’ve spoken to have said they’ve definitely had families defer their child-starting.”
Behind every withdrawal there is a gut-wrenching inner dialogue. Forget the already impossible calculation of whether an above national average $100,000 salary will adequately be worth it to help put some money away for superannuation and cover $400-a-day childcare fees for two children. The new, terrifying question is: Will my children be safe while I earn that money?
What’s more, it all comes at a time when cost-of-living pressures are biting households.
In dual-income families, the inevitable conversation about who stays home to care for the children in the absence of not just available or affordable childcare, but quality care, is rarely a fair one.
It almost always falls on women, who already earn, on average, 11.5 per cent less than men.
“We know that the great cost comes to women’s financial security,” Dent says.
“I just know women are already coming from a low base of choice. And then when you add in something like this, which is a legitimate structural fear, of course it’s going to push women further out of paid work.”
She says what is needed is “radical accountability and transparency” to fix a broken system. She points to the male-dominated construction sector, where safety improved dramatically after director accountability laws were introduced more than a decade ago.
Until we see radical change, working parents are likely to push their employers to be able to work from home out of a fear-driven necessity.
Indeed, the crisis strengthens the case for normalising work from home, just as many corporate giants would wish the arrangement would go away.
This creates a cruel paradox. The crisis strengthens the case just as the Fair Work Commission, in its landmark ruling against Westpac, affirmed it as a right. But that ruling was a win for choice. This crisis is driven by fear.
Flexibility is not without penalty, at least not yet. Research shows that not being physically present in the office can lead to reduced promotions and pay rises. Without normalising work from home, we are reinforcing what’s known as a proximity bias, forcing women into professional invisibility to ensure their children’s safety.
The long-term cost is staggering. A new report from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows the average woman faces a lifetime earnings gap of $1.5m compared to men.
The real headline is that this long-term cost is becoming the price of a working woman’s protection of her child – built on the assumption that women will abandon paid work and step up the unpaid load when it calls for it.
My fear is the gender financial equity gap will now widen, and the cruellest part is the system and our social constructs, without greater support, are designed to let it.
For a decade I’ve tracked women’s financial progress in Australia. I’ve reported many gains, fuelled by record workforce participation and net wealth creation.