Over the last two decades the level of non-standard employment in Australia has risen to one of the highest amongst OECD countries (Campbell 2004). While there are numerous forms of employment that come under the banner of ‘non-standard’, such as fixed term employment, temporary work and shift work, the recent increase is dominated by a substantial level of growth in the incidence and spread of casual employment, a specific form of non-standard employment. In essence, a casual employment contract entails an employee being paid one hours wage for one hour of work, with no other employment benefits, such as paid sick or holiday leave or notice of dismissal. The level of casual employment has increased from 15.8% of the labour force in 1984 to 27.3% in 2002 (Pocock, Buchanan and Campbell 2004:17). While it is problematic to compare countries with different labour frameworks, this does represent one of the highest rates of non-standard employment in the West (Campbell 2004:93).
This thesis will focus solely on comparisons between casual employment and permanent employment, and will not take other forms of non-standard employment into consideration. It should, however, be noted that the increasing incidence in the forms of non-standard employment has occurred for a variety of reasons, and so the classification of non-standard employment should not be treated as a homogenous group (Murtough and Whaite 2000). The findings of this study relate solely to casual employment, and should not be related directly to other forms of non-standard employment.
Given the current industrial relations climate, and the introduction of the new Federal Workplace Relations Amendment, Work Choices, in 2006, casual employment is likely to be an increasingly prominent facet of the Australian labour market. Previous research has shown that casual employment is associated with a number of characteristics: it is generally of a low-pay, low-skill nature, it tends to be concentrated in the retail, service and manual labour sectors, it tends to be part-time and dominated by women (Campbell 2000; Smith and Ewer 1999; Burgess and Campbell 1998). Given the disadvantages associated with casual employment, a question arises: Are casual employees, who are to some extent already disadvantaged in relation to the labour market, further burdened by working under a casual contract? This thesis aims to explore this question by examining differences in financial strain, financial satisfaction and job satisfaction between casual and permanent employees.
Existing research tends to use solely subjective measures, such as feelings of insecurity or satisfaction when examining the impact of casual employment on employees (Watson 2005:373; Heady, Warren and Harding 2005; Wooden and Warren 2004). This study, argues however, that it is problematic to use only subjective measures when investigating the experiences of permanent versus casual employees, as these two groups are not congruous in their characteristics nor in their expectations of paid employment, as will be shown later in the thesis. It is therefore imperative that objective measures also be used. For this reason, both an objective dependent variable, financial strain, and subjective dependent variables, financial satisfaction and job satisfaction have been used in this study. To investigate the impact of casual employment on these measures of strain and satisfaction, this study will analyse data from Wave 1 of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey conducted in 2001. This is a large nationally representative survey of Australian households that provides detailed information on levels of casual employment as well as measures of financial strain, financial satisfaction and job satisfaction.
The following section will consider the rise of casual employment in Australia. The political environment, the reasons for the increase in casual employment, characteristics of casual employees will be examined, as well as the negative impact of casual employment on strain and satisfaction, the normalisation of casual employment and the impact on women. A number of theoretical disagreements and limitations of previous research will also be considered. This will be followed by a discussion of the aims and theoretical underpinnings of this study. In the following chapter the methodology is detailed, including a discussion of data, variable creation and analytical strategy. The results of the preliminary, bivariate and regression model analyses will be presented in the results chapter. This will be followed by the discussion and conclusion which will summarise the primary findings, place them in context within the existing literature, and discuss the possible limitations and implications of the findings.
Contents
Title Page
Declaration
Table of Contents
List of Tables and List of Acronyms
Abstract
Acknowledgement
Chapter 1 – Introduction
- The Rise of Casual Employment in Australia
Aims of this Study
Chapter 2 – Methodology
- Research Aims
Data
Sample
Variable Creation
Analytic Strategy
Chapter 3 – Results
- Objective Measures: Financial Strain
Subjective Measures: Financial Satisfaction and Job Satisfaction
Summary of Results
Chapter 4 – Discussion and Conclusion
- Contradictory Findings
Limitations
Implications
Conclusion
References
Appendices
- Appendix 1a
Appendix 1b
Appendix 1c
Appendix 2
