Australia’s Parental Leave Pay Scheme: Temporal Disruption and ‘Genuine’ Attachment to Waged Work

Abstract

Australia’s parental leave provisions were enacted to provide both leave and pay for new parents, with the intent of promoting economic gender parity and softening the financial burden of motherhood. This paper investigates the structure of Australia’s parental leave pay (PLP) scheme, particularly its work-test eligibility requirement, and considers the consequences of this requirement for women excluded from PLP benefits by virtue of their attachment to waged work being deemed disingenuous (ie, not ‘genuine’). The article theorises a retemporalisation of care that allows for the varieties and transformations of embodied time in the gendered body.