Addressing the hour-glass ceiling: How health and time lock gender inequality into the labour market

The hour-glass ceiling refers to a ceiling on pay and advancement which arises when good jobs become predicated on long hours. This ceiling is time- not merit-based; it pushes otherwise qualified and capable women out of well-paid and influential jobs into short hour and less privileged jobs, compromising their income and earnings, creating a two-tiered, gender-polarised labour market that undermines equality. This seminar discusses recent research on how time and health are related. It then applies these time-health relationships to an analysis of gender inequality in employment.

Lyndall Strazdins is a Clinical Psychologist and Professor (PhD in Psychology, Master of Clinical Psychology) and the Director of the Research School of Population Health, the Australian National University. Her research focuses on contemporary predicaments of work and care and their health and equity consequences, viewing health as inter-linked within families.