Gender Implications of the Right to Request Flexible Working Arrangements: Raising Pigs and Children in New Zealand

Abstract

Despite those select achievements, women in New Zealand are still underpaid, under-represented in positions of power or economic standing, and over-represented in atypical and precarious employment. Women’s labour force participation is still lower than that of men’s with 12 percentage points difference in 2011. One of the main causes is the fact that women are still responsible for the majority of the unpaid work in the household and, in particular, they remain the main caregiver for children, the elderly and the disabled. While women’s participation in paid employment has increased drastically over the past decades, men have not changed their work-to-care ratio enough to fill the gap. Not surprisingly, women appear to be struggling with work-life conflicts more often than men.