Youthful aspirations meet unbending cultures? How young Australians plan to organise their jobs, care and housework

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes The author would like to thank Professor Chilla Bulbeck for her comments on a draft of this article. See, for example, George Megalogenis, Fault Lines: Race, Work and the Politics of Changing Australia (Scribe) Melbourne, 2003; Barbara Pocock, The Work/Life Collision (Federation Press) Sydney, 2003; Anne Summers, The End of Equality: Work, Babies and Women's Choices in 21st Century Australia (Random House) Sydney, 2003. The Australian Treasurer is one who feels this alarm (Peter Costello, Intergenerational Report 2002–03 (Australian Government) Canberra, 2004), reflecting his concern about Australia's ageing population. Hugh Mackay, Generations: Baby Boomers, Their Parents and Their Children (Macmillan) Sydney, 1997. Mackay, Generations, p. 171. Ken Dempsey, Inequalities in Marriage: Australia and Beyond (Oxford University Press) Melbourne, 1997; Anthony McMahon, Taking Care of Men: Sexual Politics in the Public Mind (Cambridge University Press) Cambridge, 1999. Hugh Mackay, ‘Ever-changing Us: No Surprise at All’, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 2001, p. 7. Michael Bittman and Jocelyn Pixley, The Double Life of the Family; Myth, Hope and Experience (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1997. A score of 1,000 on this index is the Australian average. We selected schools located in areas above the average for Comfort and Leafy Schools and below it for Strive and Struggle Schools. This is an imprecise means of approaching the income level in young people's homes. In fact, a wide range of income households were represented in most groups. For example, children in Struggle High spoke of being ‘comfortable’. On the whole, however, households in the lower income schools tended to be on average poorer than in higher income schools, and vice versa. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Social Trends (Australian Bureau of Statistics) Canberra, Cat. no. 4102.0, 2002, p. 30. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Force Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics) Canberra, Cat. no. 6203.0, 2003. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Births, Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics) Canberra, Cat. no. 3301.0, 2000, p. 38. Some of these elements accord with Mackay's analysis of the views of children born in the 1970s (who sought financial security before children), and other studies. Summers, End of Equality; Susan Shapiro Barrera, The New Wife (Nonetheless Press) New York, 2004. Lareen Newman, ‘Geographical Differences in Fertility Rates in Adelaide: a Reflection of the Social Conditions for Parenting’, paper presented at the 2004 conference of the Institute of Australian Geographers, Glenelg, South Australia, 13–16 April 2004. Michael Bittman and J. Malmud Rice, ‘The Spectre of Overwork: an Analysis of Trends between 1974 and 1997 Using Australian Time-use Diaries’, Labour & Industry, vol. 13, no. 3, 2002, pp. 5–21; Barbara Pocock and Jane Clarke, Work and Family Futures: How Young Australians Plan to Work and Care (The Australia Institute) Canberra, 2004; Michael Bittman and Judy Wajcman, ‘The Rush Hour: the Characteristics of Leisure Time and Gender Equity’, Social Forces, vol. 79, no. 1, 2000, pp. 165–77. Pocock, Collision, 2003. For some discussion of Australian attitudes to care of children, see also Belinda Probert, ‘“Grateful Slaves” or “Self-made Women”: a Matter of Choice or Policy?’, Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 17. no. 37, 2002, pp. 7–17; and Belinda Probert and John Murphy, ‘Majority Opinion or Divided Selves? Researching Work and Family Experience’, People and Place, vol. 9, no. 4, 2001, pp. 25–33. Mike performed a kind of exaggerated masculinity at times in his mixed-sex focus group. There were few signs of such over-performance of gender in single-sex groups.