Hawke Research Institute
Grantor: Australian Research Council Discovery Grant
Research team: Sara Charlesworth
Project summary: This project critically examines regulatory strategies
dealing with gender inequality in employment drawing on the decent work
agenda first proposed by the International Labour Organisation. The
project has three major aims:
1. To investigate how gender inequality might be recast as a mainstream
industrial issue drawing on the decent work agenda and international
gender equality standards as the basis of national employment
regulation;
2. To contribute to improved theoretical understandings of the problem
of gender inequality and the role of employment regulation in addressing
it through a multi-level micro-analysis of the Australian case in
cross-national comparison (Canada, The Netherlands and the United
Kingdom);
3. To identify the main policy paths shaping regulatory responses to
gender inequality in employment in the Australian and international
contexts and to provide practical policy alternatives for employment and
human rights bodies.
Grantor: Australian Research Council Discovery
Grant
Research team: Paula McDonald (QUT) and Sara Charlesworth
Project summary: Sexual harassment remains a persistent workplace issue with significant social costs. The project will examine how to most effectively prevent sexual harassment and to reduce the impact of sexual harassment for individuals and organizations where it occurs. A comprehensive analysis will be undertaken, drawing on a longitudinal study of more than 100 'targets' of sexual harassment, interviews with a wide range of employers and external complaint handling bodies, and an analysis of formal and informal reports. The project outcomes will contribute to improved policy and practice in workplaces and human rights and assist other bodies to prevent and more effectively respond to sexual harassment.
Grantor: Canadian Social Sciences & Humanities Research
Council International Opportunities Fund
Research team: Donna Baines (McMaster University), Sara Charlesworth &
Ian Cunningham (Strathclyde University)
Project summary: The research extends a highly successful Canadian study of the Non-Profit Social Services (NPSS) into the comparative international arena. It involves comparative, intensive case studies in three distinct countries with liberal welfare states, namely New Zealand, Australia and the UK. The research objectives are to: (1) investigate the local impacts of globalized models of restructuring across four liberal welfarestates; (2) clarify the local and national-level structural and policy changes behind the convergence and particularities in NPSS provision and working conditions in four liberal welfare state regimes; (3) investigate the links between emerging aspects of NPSS work under restructuring and growing problems within the NPSS across our sample; and (4) advance theoretical understandings of the NPSS, in particular with regard to labour process theories, focusing on processes of gendering and racialization.
Grantor: Australian Research Council Linkage Grant
with Workforce Victoria and Regional Development Victoria
Research team: Sara Charlesworth, Iain Campbell (RMIT University),
Marian Baird (University of Sydney)
Project summary: Work/family balance is a focus of significant attention at the community, national and international level. This project will generate new knowledge about the ways in which employment regulation directly and indirectly impacts on employee work/family balance outcomes within different regional and industry contexts. A growing body of research recognises the linkages between employment regulation and effects on child and parent well-being and health, labour force supply and economic outcomes. However little is little is known about how geographical location shapes work/family balance. The research will thus contribute to improved understandings and to better social policy at the local, state and federal levels.
Grantor: Australian Research Council, Linkage Learned
Academies Special Projects
Research team: Michael Bittman (UNE), Dorothy Broom (ANU), Duncan
Ironmonger (Melbourne Uni), Sue Richardson (Flinders Uni), Lyndall
Strazdins (ANU); Bryan Rodgers (ANU); Jan Nicholson (Melbourne Uni),
Mark Clements (ANU), Rennie D'Souza (ANU), Sara Charlesworth (UniSA),
Gillian Whitehouse (UQ), Marian Baird (Sydney Uni)
Project summary: The project aims to exploit an opportunity provided by the Global Financial Crisis to assess impact of economic downturn. It has assembled an interdisciplinary team to study the effects of the severity of the downturn on family income and employment, non-market production, family functioning and child well-being in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K, using existing major data sets. The project's findings will improve the evidence base for formulation of policy, provide important evidence about different policy settings in aiding recovery, and allow for better targeting of welfare expenditure. It will also demonstrate the practical value of advances in social science knowledge and provide valuable training and opportunities for early and mid career scholars.
Grantor: Workforce Victoria, now the Department of Business and Innovation
Research team: Sara Charlesworth & Helen Lingard (Property and Construction,
RMIT University)
Project summary: Until recently, work-family research has taken place almost exclusively in stable organizational environments with repetitive processes and regular work patterns. Consequently little is known about work-family experiences in the type of project-based work that characterises work in construction. The scoping study addresses two key questions:
