Persistent inequalities: The distribution of money, time and care

Inequality and the redistributive impact of public policies have been central themes in Frank Stilwell's research and in his time as a public intellectual. This chapter examines inequality in Australia in relation to the gendered distribution of money, time and care. It extends and updates Frank Stilwell and Kirrily Jordan's work on gender inequality. The methods are similar to theirs: analysis of official statistics and consideration of how feminist economists and other social scientists have explained the observable patterns. The labour market situation of women and men in Australia is analysed in some detail, both longitudinally and in cross-section, beginning with temporal patterns of participation and the gender pay gap in aggregate, and moving on to the gender distribution of employment between industries and occupations. The chapter concludes with a brief account of how feminist ideas have been recently mobilised in Australian wage-fixing institutions to redress some dimensions of gender inequality, and by proposing, in broad terms, some policies that might further increase gender equality.