Key Point
- The report promotes a "shared work-valued care" approach to balancing paid work and care in Australia.
The challenge of balancing work commitments and family responsibilities has long been a major issue for modern Australian society. This challenge continues to be an area of focus for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission ("HREOC") with the release of its final report in a series dealing with the work life balance debate.
Interestingly, the report entitled "It’s About Time: women, men, work and family" promotes a "shared work-valued care" approach to balancing paid work and care in Australia.
HREOC say that caring responsibilities are an inevitable and integral part of working life, not a choice, and thus the "myth of the ideal worker" must be replaced with a more realistic "shared work-valued care" approach that is based on a universal caregiver ideal that encourages both men and women to share care and paid work. The report argues that this
