Women who stay at home to raise children are a problem for Australia’s economy, according to a major new study.
A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) claims stay-at-home mums and women who work short part-time hours are creating “
Part-time workers and women with children are the “greatest untapped potential in the Australian labour force”, the study states.
The authors say more “prime aged” women (25-54) could enter the workforce and further efforts are needed to encourage mothers with young children into work.
The idea is that paid work is “important for women’s personal well-being and perceptions of their overall quality of life’’, the study states.
Listen: There is no such thing as work/life balance. (Post continues after podcast).
These are familiar motherhood battle lines, where women are told to choose a side in what’s presented as a black and white situation.
The Parenthood‘s Principal Campaign Manager, Nicole Lessio, says she’s angry that women are demonised for choices they’re sometimes “forced to make”.
“Stay-at-home mums should ignore the horrible headlines,” says Ms Lessio.
“As mums we’re either cold, ambitious and leaving our children to go to work or we’re a drain on the economy if we stay at home – we just can’t win.
Top Comments
Recently, my wife and I called my mother to wish her a happy birthday. A few minutes after we got off the phone, I called my mother back again, because I thought that it was worthy of a separate phone call to tell her something important to me. For the first time ever, I THANKED her for staying at home with my sister and me. I'm fortunate that she was both willing and able to give us such a gift.
I was a child of the 70's whose mother was a rarity (of that era) and worked full time from the time I was 6 weeks old. I have no early childhood memories of my mum and we didn't bond as I only saw her briefly each day when she picked me up, made dinner then put me to bed. She was always too exhausted to play on the weekends. I greatly envied kids whose mums had time for them. I'm sick of the government (usually middle aged men) putting pressure on women to work when there is a very real and devastating fall out for the children. I'm older now but I still have a 'mother ache' that's been with me since childhood. I decided to take the time off work for my own kids and have loved being there to create memories with them.... Being there for your kids creates happy, secure adults and that cannot be undervalued!!