Global care ‘chains and drains’: Women, migration and care work

Care work, whether paid or unpaid, remains disproportionately carried out by women. With more and more women participating in the paid workforce and working non-standard hours alongside men, a care crisis has emerged globally. Who is caring for those that need it now? Who will provide care in the future? In this guest post, Emeritus Professor Fiona Williams from the University of Leeds explains the ‘chains and drains’ of global care and presents some alternative policy solutions that favour gender equity and workers’ rights.

EVENT ALERT: “Now you see it, now you don’t!” Gender in contemporary policy.

In its fourth successful year, Power to Persuade’s (PTP) annual symposium is not only going national but is also branching out to include a forum on gender and contemporary policy. Headed up by Lara Corr (@corr_lara), a gender inequity focused public health and social policy scholar, alongside Gemma Carey and Kathy Landvogt (co-directors of PTP), this ground-breaking forum will hit the big issues of how women and policy mix (or don’t) in the current policy climate. Beyond that, the forum, which will be known as PTP:Gender, will explore how to do policy differently by taking a feminist perspective. Save the date for the 17^th September, 9-3.30pm, Australian National University, Canberra.

Evidence-based policy making: what Westminster policy officers say they do & why

Where does evidence stand in the war on ideas within government? What are the barriers to evidence-based policy-making and what does a strategic, innovative, evidence-based policy system look like when you’ve got one?

Professor Mark Evans, Director of the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra, outlines findings from these questions and more gathered from a series of executive workshops held in Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand over the past three years.

This article was originally published at The Policy Space and republished here with permission and thanks.

What if the best way to be innovative is not to try?

This post comes from Oxfam’s James Whitehead (on Twitter @james_whitehead) via From Poverty to Power, the blog written and maintained by Duncan Green (@fp2p), strategic adviser for Oxfam Great Britain and author of ‘From Poverty to Power’.

Bad news: negative Indigenous health coverage reinforces stigma

Dr Melissa Stoneham and her colleagues at the Public Health Advocacy Institute WA (PHAIWA) at Curtin University last year looked at the portrayal of Indigenous health in selected Australian media. Their findings were not just valuable for media outlets but for people and organisations working in research, policy development and advocacy.

The PHAIWA is now researching the prevalence of Indigenous spokespeople used in the media: watch this space.

Social Policy Whisperer: Are health funding cuts a Second Front in the war on the voluntary sector?

In his latest Social Policy Whisperer column below, Prof. Paul Smyth from the University of Melbourne warns of growing risk to our society and democracy from an agenda to defund peaks and fund agencies only to deliver services – “no more no less”.

Transforming housing

Despite some very strange advice from the Treasurer in recent weeks, it’s clear to most that Australia is suffering from an acute housing affordability problem. It isn’t  an easy problem to solve and so the Transforming Housing Project @trnsfmnghousing, at the University of Melbourne is looking at it from all angles.

Emerging themes and important lessons for progressing cross-sectoral policy design and implementation: a discussion

This blog post provides a teaser for an upcoming book, Creating and Implementing Cross-Sectoral public policy: Contemporary Debates. Whether working in the community sector, research, advocacy or perhaps even government, individuals want to know how to get heard and how to have an impact on policy. The construction of public policy and its effects differs according to one’s position in the process. In our edited collection, we explore policy design and implementation as an interplay between politics, values, ideas and evidence: presenting a ‘toolbox’ of ideas, perspectives and strategies related to policy approaches and their translation for action. The text is also designed to function as a conversation between those from ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the policymaking tent. Below, the editors explore some of the key themes of the book from their different perspectives.

 

Kathy Landvogt is a long-term policy actor from within the community sector, leads this discussion, and Jo Barraket and Gemma Carey respond from their academic perspectives.

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