Work and Life - Helen Wilkinson

Link rights to responsibility.

People want more choices -- and are more prepared to shoulder the consequences of those choices. Freedom to enjoy diverse forms of family can be linked to responsibilities for both men and women to provide financial support to children. Rights to child care can be linked to requirements to take active roles in care centers and schools.

Target new areas of disadvantage.

Single women need a raft of new supports, such as the low-income allowance for child care and reformed benefits structures. Unskilled young men, too, need long-term subsidies for job creation, training schemes to encourage their shift into service industries, and incentives to share in parenting. All will be essential not just for men themselves but to reduce the pressure that their problems impose on women.

Revalue care.

We need new ways to replace informal child care with formal paid care -- a costly undertaking. We also need to encourage more men to take on caring roles, by reshaping their image and by promoting a less segregated labor market. We need to devise new caring relationships -- both within and outside of the family. And we need to socialize young people, particularly men, into the world of caring work via community service.