Employment Entitlements to Carer's Leave: Domesticating Diverse Subjectivities

Griffith Law Review, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2009

U of Melbourne Legal Studies Research Paper No. 478

23 Pages Posted: 5 Jul 2010

See all articles by Anna Chapman

Anna Chapman

University of Melbourne - Law School; University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law

Date Written: July 5, 2010

Abstract

This article explores the normative underpinnings of two main sets of minimum employment standards in Australia: parental leave following birth or adoption of a child, and personal/carer's leave in order to attend to the short-term care needs of a member of the employee's 'immediate family' or 'household'. The article reveals how these leave arrangements are structured around a set of assumptions about what constitutes a real family. The rules normalise a conservative form of heterosexed nuclear family, especially in relation to the care of babies, where gendered understandings of care (and work) remain strong. Recently, both sets of leave entitlements have been explicitly extended to same-sex couples. This formal equality approach to law reform disrupts the opposite gender marker of the normative relationship, but largely continues the normativity of the two-adult couple and its conservative form of caring practice idealised in law.

Keywords: employment, leave entitlements

JEL Classification: J20, J29, K00, K31

Suggested Citation

Chapman, Anna, Employment Entitlements to Carer's Leave: Domesticating Diverse Subjectivities (July 5, 2010). Griffith Law Review, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2009, U of Melbourne Legal Studies Research Paper No. 478, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1634723

Anna Chapman (Contact Author)

University of Melbourne - Law School ( email )

Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law
Parkville, Victoria 3010
Australia
61 3 8344 5625 (Phone)
61 3 9349 4623 (Fax)

University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law

Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

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