Major parties should extend paid parental leave to 52 weeks, enhance rights to flexible work, and boost paid carers’ leave to ten days to support of families’ need to balance work and care responsibilities, according to a new report from a consortium of leading academics.

As Australia prepares to head to the polls on 3 May, the roundtable has released the Work, Care and Family Policies: Federal Election Benchmarks 2025 – its seventh set of such benchmarks to advance public debate and policy initiatives aimed to benefit all Australians.

Led by Professor Elizabeth Hill from the University of Sydney and Professor Emerita Sara Charlesworth from RMIT University, the Australian Work + Family Policy Roundtable is a network of 36 academics from 18 universities and research institutions with expertise on work, care and family policy.

“Combining work with care responsibilities remains a major struggle for most Australian households. These are two essential spheres of life that, despite recent progress, too often remain in conflict,” Professor Hill said.

Professor Emerita Charlesworth said: “Since the last federal election several reforms have helped Australian families to better balance work and care. These include the extension of the national Paid Parental Leave system, introduction of three days of subsidised early childhood education and care guaranteed for every child, increased wages for many support and care workers, and the introduction of paid family and domestic violence leave for all workers.

“Despite this progress, Australia remains a global laggard in the level of national investment in early childhood education and care, aged care, and paid parental leave.” 

Having reviewed recent work, care and family policy settings, the expert group provides key recommendations under six themes:

• Decent work that supports decent care;

• Leave from work to care;

• Sustainable high-quality care infrastructure;

• Gender pay equality;

• Safe and respectful workplaces;

• Institutional support for decent work and decent care.

Other recommendations include building a national system of universal, free, high-quality early childhood education and care, and an increase in the share of publicly owned, funded and delivered services.

“Public investment that prioritises not-for-profit services will deliver high quality services, and sustainable and decent work conditions for the care workforce,” Professor Hill said.

“Robust, well-resourced work and care policies have the potential to boost labour supply, economic productivity and enhance community wellbeing. We must maintain and build further on recent policy initiatives.”