Curtains for Carers

A national survey of more than 600 people working in the Australian film and television industry found that workers' experiences of parenting and caring were highly gendered, with 74% of carers — 86% of whom were women — in the study reporting that caring responsibilities have a negative impact on their career.

"Most contemporary experiences in Australian workplaces around caring responsibilities, including taking time off and then returning to paid work, are gendered — but this industry has particular challenges that exacerbate this pattern," says Sheree Gregory, a lecturer in human resources at Western Sydney University’s School of Business.

Gregory was part of the survey team — supported by Create NSW, the state government’s arts policy and funding body which brings together arts, screen and culture functions in an integrated entity. She has researched work practices in the entertainment sector since 2013 and has interviewed a wide range of stakeholders; including actors working across theatre, television and film; union representatives; female screen directors working in Australia, the US, and UK; and cultural policy advocators in the US. Gregory says that the non-standard work hours, precarious employment opportunities and frequent travel requirements in musical theatre, screen, and associated work in Australia are challenging for people with caring responsibilities.

"Standard childcare hours that run from 7am to 6pm don’t work when your show opens at 8pm, or if you’re going to be on the road for weeks on end," she explains. As a result, many workers rely on extended family or others to help with childcare. "This is care that is informal, it’s unstructured and it’s invisible," Gregory adds.

More than half of the national survey respondents (56%) worked as freelancers or were self-employed, so had no organisational parental leave entitlements or guaranteed return-to-work provisions, and many women said they concealed their caring responsibilities from employers to avoid discrimination.

One female executive told the researchers, "In various jobs I have been extremely careful to not mention my child, virtually pretending not to have a child."

Gregory points out that keeping the existence of children invisible exacerbates the problem, devaluing caring in the screen industry and limiting opportunities to discuss more flexible workplaces.

Most survey respondents (81%) were female, and the top five roles for women were producer, crew member (post-production), director, writer, and on-set crew member.

The survey also found a significant discrepancy in pre-tax earnings between men and women, with 55% of female carers earning below the Australian median income, compared to only 34% of male carers.

The survey results were detailed in a full report called 'Honey, I Hid the Kids!: Experiences of Parents and Carers in the Australian Screen Industry' launched in South Australia, Victoria, and NSW in 2018, which led to five industry recommendations to advance gender equality and address the impact of caring on screen workers.

These included measures to help carers return to work (including subsidised on-site childcare, flexible and more predictable work hours, and hiring incentives for employers), training for industry and for carers, and introducing care-sensitive funding agency processes.

The report was triggered by a screen industry roundtable discussion about the issues facing the workforce, which included carers, together with various industry responses.

One solution, for example, is a production finance funding specification by Create NSW that requires projects receiving over $400,000 funding to engage at least one crew member, key creative, or department head who is a carer, and provided a database of eligible workers, with the South Australian Film Corporation introducing a similar scheme. 

Other programmes include a workshop and mentoring scheme for screen practitioners who are carers in regional NSW and returning to work after a career break, called 'Making it Possible.'

"It has been good to see that the industry initiatives prompted by the report, because prior to the survey, working conditions for carers in the Australian screen industry had not progressed much in the past 30 years," says Gregory.