Cutting the cord: universal paid maternity leave and the baby bonus in Australia
The perceived demographic imperative to increase the total fertility rate in Australia gave rise to the creation of the lump-sum Baby Bonus, one part of a suite of pronatalist family-friendly incentives introduced by the Howard Federal Government in 2004. This paper considers the evolution of the Baby Bonus, and suggests that it has been entangled erroneously with universal paid maternity leave, a cord that needs to be cut. The former belongs inside a welfare paradigm as financial support for the costs of a new child; the latter belongs to a human rights paradigm, because without income replacement, employment security and superannuation continuity, a female worker (and her family) is penalised for having a child. If paid maternity leave has been a 'poorly understood concept in Australian scholarship' (Baird 2004:260), the lump-sum Baby Bonus has been even more so, but its contribution has been to help usher in a contentious, long-awaited, universal paid maternity leave scheme.
Year of publication: |
2008-12
|
---|---|
Authors: | Anderson, Marilyn |
Other Persons: | Majoribanks, T. (contributor) ; Barraket, J. (contributor) ; Chang, J-S. (contributor) ; Dawson, A. (contributor) ; Guillemin, M. (contributor) ; Henry-Waring, M. (contributor) ; Kenyon, A. (contributor) ; Kokanovic, R. (contributor) ; Lewis, J. (contributor) ; Lusher, D. (contributor) ; Nolan, D. (contributor) ; Pyett, P. (contributor) ; Robins, R. (contributor) ; Warr, D. (contributor) ; Wyn, J. (contributor) |
Publisher: |
The Australian Sociological Association |
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