The care economy is the nation’s single biggest employer, and is the fastest-growing sector as measured by jobs growth.
As the finance minister stated in a speech to the G20 Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment in August “the paid care economy is growing, with the health care and social assistance sector more than doubling in size in the past 20 years, rising from 10% to 15% of the workforce and now employing more than 2 million people.”
A big transformation that has fundamentally reshaped our economy. So, the question is — why aren’t we in the midst of a revolution, similar to that of the industrial revolution in the 20th century?
Likely because heavily feminised occupations are undervalued. Traditionally, men who perform manual labour is the image we conjure when we think of a blue-collar worker. Construction workers, machine operators, truck drivers. The blue-collar workers of today are not the same as in that bygone era — no longer male factory workers — but female care workers.
The care sectors account for more than double the jobs growth in construction. Yet, for decades, women in care industries have been paid wages that would not have been endured by workers in male-dominated industries.
As the care economy continues to rise, locking in its prominence as a driver of our national success — we are posed to repeat the failings of the past. For workers in some care sectors, we are creating a new underclass. Compared to the Australian labour force as a whole, jobs in aged care are less likely to offer a living wage.
These are our blue-collar workers — 90% of whom are the lowest-paid women in the country. With average pay rates of $18 an hour, the sector is dominated by women earning about half the annual national average (aged care royal commission, 2021).
It is not just about pay equity; it is about governments taking responsibility to design better service systems. Because without structural reform, another failure from the past — prioritising profits over people — will also keep repeating.
Our collective memory, steeped in the history of the industrial revolution, often defaults to perceptions of economies driven by linear industrial machines. And it is our conception of industry being linear that is the greatest challenge as it was not only a pattern with the industrial revolution but also of the digital revolution. Raw materials — or more recently, ideas — go in, a commodified widget comes out, workers are expendable.
But this historical industrial model does not apply to the care economy. Firstly, care services are predominantly government funded. There is no true market here. Secondly, there are no widgets, just humans.
The outputs of the care economy are quality of life for individuals and a thriving society. A central theme across research about care workers is that care quality is highly correlated with job quality, and that older people’s satisfaction with care is highly correlated with care workers’ job satisfaction.
Yet it is not a long bow to draw to envisage outsourced government services as the new workhouses. Look at the characteristics of care work: underpaid, irregular schedules, excess workloads, complex care and regulatory requirements, deprivation of personal time, poor career pathway, and limited professional development opportunities.
The impact is hidden because there is no physical manifestation, no building to point to.
However, an all too tangible example of the connection between wellbeing of people receiving care and the quality of work, the work environment and employment conditions of care workers is the link between employee turnover in residential aged care to increased mortality for residents.
While the notion of a circular economy has been a popular concept in some sectors for some time – the ascendency of the care sector essentially makes the need to reconceptualisation the function of our economy a personal one. We all need care.
The industrial revolution built our cities, created our physical infrastructure. Now is the time to better value our human infrastructure to build a prosperous society.
READ MORE:
Women subjected to ‘motherhood penalty’, says Treasury
Aidan Lewis is a health policy expert at Miles Morgan Australia and a PhD candidate at the University of Canberra specialising in health.
Loire Hunter is a managing director at Miles Morgan Australia and a former ministerial adviser and senior bureaucrat responsible for policy and programs across social, economic and regulatory portfolios.
Tags: Aged Care Royal Commission Australian labour force better service systems blue-collar work care workers female care workers feminised occupations G20 Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment Health care industrial revolution social assistance sector
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By Aidan Lewis and Loire Hunter
The University of New South Wales
Australian Law Reform Commission
Health Care Complaints Commission
Community Services Directorate
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