More specifically, most of the growth in part-time employment has gone to women, while the decline in full-time work has mostly effected men. Landt and Pech (2000) agree, attributing the increase in labour force participation of women to the increase in part-time employment (from 16% in 1978 to 26% in 1999). At the same time the proportion of males participating in the labour force has fallen from 80.5 per cent to 72.0 per cent. The result of this change in participation patterns has meant that women have increased their share of total employment from 34.6 per cent to 44.1 per cent. In actual numbers there are now nearly twice as many women employed as there were in 1975. .
Mike Steketee, writing in The Australian on June 6, gave a more realistic picture: "A revolution in work in Australia has left fewer than half of employees working a standard Monday-to-Friday week and has seen a dramatic growth in casual and low-paying jobs, according to new research: " full time permanent employees made up 74 per cent of the workforce in 1988 but only 61 per cent in 2002. Casual jobs accounted for two-thirds of the increase in total employment during the 1990s. Almost nine in 10 of all new jobs created during this period paid less than $26,000 a year and almost half less than $15,000-.
The increased precariousness of employment in Australia gives rise to three important labour market problems: sharp increases in earnings differentials that have contributed to increased income inequalities; the existence of a large and growing pool of workers with low wages (as suggested by the previous paragraph); and the relative lack of labour market mobility of the working poor (Barrett, 2001: p3). The official unemployment statistics indicate that the health of the Australian labour market has improved in line with the growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) associated with the recovery from the recession of the early 1990s .
