The white paper was promised out of last year’s jobs and skills summit to examine policy options to improve the nation’s employment market. Unemployment remains around a 50-year low of 3.5 per cent while there are almost as many people officially out of work as there are job vacancies.
Kennedy said about 70 per cent of Australian women held down a job,a proportion similar to women in the United States,Canada,New Zealand and the UK.
But Australian women were much less likely to work full time,with Kennedy arguing they faced substantial financial disincentives to pick up additional days.
A woman working part-time,receiving a full-time equivalent of $60,000 as the family’s secondary earner would lose 60 per cent of an extra day’s work to income tax,reduced family benefit payments and childcare fees.
For a fifth day of work,the woman would lose 80 per cent of extra earnings.
Kennedy said people on welfare who worked part-time faced similar financial penalties to take on more work.