Choice and coercion: women's experiences of casual work

There have been many changes in the labour market in Australia. One of the major changes has been the casualisation of employment. While casualisation is growing for both men and women, the detailed pattern of casual employment suggests a sharply gendered phenomenon. Women are disproportionately represented in casual employment, particularly part-time casual employment, with close to one in three working women employed as casuals. This report analyses women's experience of casual work in the labour market. It provides a research overview of casual employment, the extent and growth of casual employment, by gender, industry, occupation and age. It then investigates the casualisation of work in the retail industry, community services and nursing profession. The findings show that there is evidence of a new form of employment which is not casual in the common law sense (because of its regular and on-going nature), but is not permanent either, as the employees in question do not have access to the award entitlements that flow only to permanent employees. This report emphasises that the existing regulation of casual employment needs reassessment, to stop the growth of a form of employment which while nominally casual is paradoxically neither casual nor permanent. Show less