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Progress towards pay equity between men and women in the Australian economy stalled during the COVID‐19 pandemic, highlighting once again the gendered impact of the pandemic. However, little is known about the impact of the pandemic on the gender pay gap in the platform economy. Drawing on data from an Australian survey of platform workers (n = 947) during the early months of the pandemic (2020), this research investigates how the pandemic impacted the gender pay gap across different platform types—care, delivery and driving, microwork, and marketplace—and the platform economy overall. The findings show that the gendered segregated nature of platform work compounded by the uneven impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on particular types of platform work increased the pay gap between men and women. This research also sought to examine the mechanisms behind the gender pay gap, finding that human capital differences and platform gender segregation largely explain the gender pay gap on platforms in Australia. There was an association between parenthood and earnings, but this is moderated by human capital and platform type, suggesting that differences in earnings amongst parents are explained by these factors. The research finds that the gender gap across the platform economy increased by five percentage points, indicating that the gendered impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic also affected the platform economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Queering the Map (queeringthemap.com) is a novel digital platform: a storymap, an anonymous collaborative record, an archive of queer experiences. To contribute to the platform, visitors make their own mark by clicking on an empty space on the map. As to what visitors contribute, the platform's About section suggests, simply, 'If it counts for you, then it counts for Queering the Map'. In this article, we probe this guiding principle. What does count in this context? What matters in the queer archive? Drawing on interviews with 14 site users and an analysis of nearly 2000 stories pinned to Australia on the map, we consider what platform practices reveal about queer collective memory-making, to illuminate the how and why of a queer archive. We see that relatability matters because of the affective, affirming and community-building seeds it can generate; situation matters because it is through participatory practices that recognition, visibility and community place-making are enacted; and, the everyday matters as the archive's visitors collectively claim and gift their varied personal experiences. Through these themes we explore queer contributions or how site visitors are oriented towards giving something of themselves to the archive. We discuss how archival properties of the platform are key to (queer) participation, and to meaning-making – as distinct, as queer, as a valued record. Queering the Map, we argue, is significant in how space is made for queer representation, carving new contours for archival 'evidence' and community histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate data collection from LGBTIQ+ communities is crucial for public health research and the provision of equitable services. Emergent fluid, multiple, trans and non-binary gender identities complicate data collection in ways that make an excellent case-study for rethinking the categorization of such data. In this article, we explore some of the obstacles to collecting data from trans, gender-diverse and non-binary (TGD) communities, and the difficulties in synthesizing meaning about fluid or multiple identity categories. We review a selection of international surveys from the last 10 years and then present a case-study of data collection in an Australian mixed-methods study of LGBTQ+ young people's uses of social media. In doing so we draw upon trans and gender diverse people's lived experiences to reinterpret our survey dataset in which responses that 'refused categorisation' were initially removed. We argue that theorizing the 'social life of data' – that is analysing the disciplinary orientation and purpose of research, while also acknowledging the moment and site of data collection, the methods used, and the mutable meanings in play – better accounts for the lived experiences of gender beyond binary and static identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing survey data from 1,304 LGBTQ + young people in Australia collected in 2016, this paper considers key distinctions between the experiences of bisexual and pansexual participants, and lesbian and gay participants in relation to social media use and aspects of connection, harassment and mental health. Presenting quantitative data, illustrated by qualitative extracts, we found broad similarities in motivations for using social media and how participants connected to peers and communities. There were some statistically significant differences, however, in respondents' motivations for using social media and who they connected with on these platforms. Importantly, bisexual and pansexual participants reported more negative experiences of harassment and exclusion across all major social media platforms when compared to their lesbian and gay peers. Bisexual and pansexual respondents also reported poorer mental health experiences. These findings speak to the different impacts of discrimination and oppression that young people experience in everyday life. There is a need for focused attention on bisexual and pansexual young people in academic, policy and youth-work domains. Young people will benefit from more substantial school-based education on LGBTQ + identities - beyond the experiences of gay and lesbian people - to 'usualise' varieties of difference in gender and sexual identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Second World War there have been significant changes in the gender systems of industrialised countries, largely driven by increased female labour force participation. Changes in men's domestic participation have been comparatively incremental, and researchers contend the gender revolution will only be complete when men's and women's commitments are matched. Prior research on attitudes about gender roles has concentrated on women, but in this research, the focus is on men. Using growth curve analyses of Australian longitudinal data (N = 24,397), this article examines attitudes towards fatherhood and working fathers and how they changed between 2001 and 2015. Workforce status, relationship status and parenthood are strong predictors of different attitudinal outcomes and change for men and women, indicating that views were influenced by interest and exposure in ways that differed by gender. Further, the authors find attitudes towards fatherhood and working fathers have changed over the last 15 years, particularly amongst working fathers and mothers, which have become more supportive of greater father involvement in the care of children and the ability of working fathers to meet the needs of their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the issue of workplace safety among food-delivery workers who use platforms like UberEATS and Deliveroo to secure work. Despite the high exposure to hazardous traffic, extreme weather conditions, and unsafe work hours and locations that these workers face daily, safety remains a low priority for both platforms and governments. This study utilizes in-depth qualitative interviews with 14 platform food delivery workers in Melbourne, Australia, to examine how they understand and manage safety risks at work, drawing on a theoretical framework of necropolitics and liminal precarity. The riders are predominantly migrant workers on temporary visas who face corporeal risks influenced by factors such as road conditions, time pressures, and weather. Despite their awareness of these dangers, the study reveals that platform-induced necropower, driven by economic incentives, significantly impacts those heavily dependent on gig economy earnings, ultimately turning safety into a trade-off between making a living and surviving. However, riders also demonstrate agency by mediating risks through experience, knowledge-sharing, and strategic use of the platform's features to resist potentially hazardous conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mental load has received considerable public attention especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we synthesize existing literature to argue that the mental load is a combination of cognitive and emotional labor and it is this combination that makes the mental work a load. We argue that the way the mental load operates within families and society has three characteristics: (1) it is invisible in that it is enacted internally yet results in a range of unpaid, physical labor; (2) it is boundaryless in that can be brought to work and into leisure and sleep time; and (3) enduring in that it is never complete because it is tied to caring for loved ones which is constant. We also offer some future directions for addressing the problems associated with the mental load. First, questions measuring the mental load should be standard in health and social surveys to better understand the problem. Second, employers should adopt better policies that allow for greater work-life reconciliation to lessen the mental load. Third, caregiving should be vital infrastructure developed and invested in by governments to reduce competing work and care demands that accelerate the deleterious consequences of the mental load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people have been regarded as "not at risk" of coronavirus, but what about the economic impact of social distancing and "lockdowns" arising from the pandemic? How have young women fared in comparison to young men? To address these questions, this study draws upon data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, comparing young men and women and their older counterparts. The study also uses the Global Financial Crisis as a reference point to compare the immediate impact of COVID‐19 on young people. Results suggest that young people have been significantly impacted by COVID‐19 compared to older Australians. Young women in particular are being exposed to the economic fallout, especially those women in their 20s, wanting more work and more hours. COVID‐19 threatens to erode some of the gains women have made in recent decades in terms of participation unless governments act to provide opportunities and support for young women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses data from the longitudinal Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey to examine cross-spousal influences on workforce transitions by men (n = 4667) and women (n = 5051) aged 50–69. We assess how gender patterns in employment (full- and part-time work) and non-employment activity (unemployment, non-employment and homemaking) changed among this age group over the period 2001–2017, which included the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008. Notwithstanding that more men than women were in full-time work, and more women than men were employed part time or were homemakers, over the period there was an overall rise in employment for both genders, which following the GFC continued most strongly for women. Random effects logistic regression on partnered men and women showed that prior to the GFC one spouse transitioning out of the labour market was associated with significantly higher odds of the other spouse also doing so. This implies coordination, for example spouses retiring together. In contrast, following the GFC, one spouse leaving paid employment was associated with higher odds of the other taking up work or increasing their hours, suggesting that the economic slowdown encouraged an added worker effect in those households, with one spouse compensating for the job loss of the other. The finding was apparent for both men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic caused working from home to spike abruptly, creating a unique spatial organization of paid and unpaid work that was not so different for women and men. This paper reports early results from a survey of Australian men and women, conducted during state-imposed lockdown in May 2020, on how the pandemic affected paid work, domestic work, and caring responsibilities. Findings reveal a rise in domestic work burdens for all. Women shouldered most of the extra unpaid workload, but men's childcare time increased more in relative terms, so average gender gaps narrowed. The relative gap in housework remained. While the lockdown generated lower subjective time pressure, dissatisfaction with balance of paid and unpaid work rose markedly and from a much higher base for women. Overall, the results reflect a need for sustained policy attention to the care economy to narrow rather than widen gender disparity. HIGHLIGHTS Lockdowns created extra unpaid work, at the same time as people also worked from home. Men pitched in more, but only to about the same amount as women were doing before the pandemic. Employers expected their workers to be as productive as before the pandemic, ignoring care burdens. Childcare and school closures disproportionally affected women's paid and unpaid work. Women's economic security will be at growing risk unless affordable care services are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID‐19 and the associated lockdowns meant many working parents were faced with doing paid work and family care at home simultaneously. To investigate how they managed, this article draws a subsample of parents in dual‐earner couples (n = 1536) from a national survey of 2722 Australian men and women conducted during lockdown in May 2020. It asked how much time respondents spent in paid and unpaid labour, including both active and supervisory care, and about their satisfaction with work–family balance and how their partner shared the load. Overall, paid work time was slightly lower and unpaid work time was very much higher during lockdown than before it. These time changes were most for mothers, but gender gaps somewhat narrowed because the relative increase in childcare was higher for fathers. More mothers than fathers were dissatisfied with their work–family balance and partner's share before COVID‐19. For some the pandemic improved satisfaction levels, but for most they became worse. Again, some gender differences narrowed, mainly because more fathers also felt negatively during lockdown than they had before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much do young people's daily activities differ according to where they live? As a global generation, young people are disproportionally subject to the risks and insecurity of globalization. However, countries differ in their support for young people's inclusion through economic and social participation. Using time use surveys from Australia, Italy, Finland, France, Korea, Spain, the UK and the USA (n = 23,271), this paper investigates national differences in the amount of time young people (20–34 years) spend on paid and unpaid work, study and leisure in each country. Gender gaps in market work and non-market work were widest in the Anglo and southern European countries. In France and Finland, gender differences in daily market and non-market activity were narrower. Young women spent more daily time in study than young men in all countries except Korea, where study time was highest. Young men and young women in social democratic Finland had more leisure time than young people elsewhere. Results suggest that young people's experience of the consequences of globalization is not universal, but that nation-states remain relevant in determining their welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]