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Prior to the GED the burning platform for flexible work practices could be conceptualised ascomprising three elements – all of them employee-centred. The first element focussed on attractingand retaining women as a critical source of labour, the second on the quality of family life arisingfrom work/family conflict, and the third on the unmet need for flexibility in relation to employeegroups beyond women with children.Firstly, in relation to the attraction and retention of women it was argued that flexible work practicesenabled women to integrate their work and caring responsibilities, and in particular that part-timework enabled mothers to care for young children and continue paid work. The force of thisargument is reflected in the significant drop in full-time labour force participation rates for womenaged 25-34 years, corresponding to the years of early child-rearing, and an increase in part-timework18. However as a result of women accessing part-time work in increasing numbers (as atNovember 2008, 45 per cent of employed women worked on a part-time basis19), it became clearthat there were hidden disadvantages. These disadvantages included a lack of quality part-timework20 and limited access to managerial roles on a part-time basis21.These negative outcomes reflect an underlying paradigm in which the norm or mainstream mode ofwork continued to be full-time (only 15 per cent of men worked on a part-time basis as at August200822) and an unwritten workplace culture that expected employees to work beyond full-time hours(the Australia Institute estimated that in 2009 full-time employees worked an additional 70 minutes
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