Overview

This report describes some of the conditions of employment of sole parents in Australia and their implications for the implementation of the ILO Convention 156. Signatories to this Convention undertake to pursue policies which ensure the access to employment and equal participation of workers with family responsibilities. The report focuses on sole parents as a subgroup of parents whose particular circumstances may pose additional barriers to employment and equal participation and thus may require special strategies to safeguard their rights under the Convention. The report outlines the Articles of ILO Convention 156, and describes the characteristics of sole parents and their employment circumstances from a national perspective. It then considers more detailed information on sole mothers' access to employment, conditions of employment, their assessment of barriers to employment and the relative importance of employment conditions. These data are drawn from the Australian Living Standards Study (ALSS), as are those in the next section, which focuses on couple and sole mothers' access to and evaluation of work-related benefits. Housing conditions are also presented - tenure, costs and satisfaction - to explore their possible effects on employment for employed and unemployed sole and couple mothers. The use of formal, informal and home-based child care by employed couple and sole mothers in the ALSS is described, and case studies of sole parents from the ALSS are used to illustrate strategies used by sole parents to manage responsibility for rearing children and providing an income for them.