Aboriginal men need jobs, not more programs
A new Australian Medical Association (AMA) report says a lack of purpose in Aboriginal men’s lives has had a profound impact on their health and well-being—not to mention the lives of their women and children. This finding is far from surprising. You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to work out that sitting around doing nothing leads to despondency and despair.
The statistics paint a bleak picture. Aboriginal men are twice as likely to be hospitalised for mental health and three times more likely to commit suicide than other Australian males.
Somewhat predictably, AMA wants more money for programs that address violent behaviour and self harm. But such programs are only band-aid solutions and do not go to the heart of the issue.
The unspoken word behind AMA’s ‘sense of purpose’ is employment.
In 80% of all Indigenous homicides, neither the victim nor the perpetrator was employed, and alcohol was involved in nearly half of these cases.
A recent study found that 70% of residents in remote communities in East Arnhem Land use cannabis, with almost 90% of users claiming to be addicted and smoking more than six cones a day. Senior Arnhem Land elder Bakamumu Marika says the high rate of cannabis use is because people are bored stiff: ‘They've got no work to do, no training, no jobs.’
Although it may be easy to identify the causes and consequences of Aboriginal men’s problems, solving them is more complicated. Many men are too dependent on alcohol and drugs to be employable, whilst separatist schooling has left many lacking the basic literacy and numeracy needed for employment.
Before we throw up our hands in despair, it is worth reflecting on Noel Pearson’s words of hope in the latest Quarterly Essay titled ‘Radical Hope’: ‘The truth is that I am prone to bouts of doubt and sadness ... But I have hope. Our hope is dependent upon education. Our hope depends on how serious we become about the education of our people.’
Sara Hudson is a Policy Analyst with the Indigenous Affairs Research Program at The Centre for Independent Studies.
Through the glass ceiling back to the glass floor
There’s nothing like an old-fashioned battle between working mums and their stay-at-home sisters, especially when a glamorous and high profile mother like the editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, weighs in.
Shulman argues in this week’s Daily Mail that moves to enshrine and enhance mothers’ rights in the workplace threaten to undermine women’s success in crashing through the glass ceiling by making them virtually unemployable.
Family friendly work arrangements are, in principle, available to both mums and dads. But they are overwhelmingly used by women. Maternity leave can be renamed ‘parental,’ but the new label doesn’t necessarily mean men are rushing from the boardroom to the playground.
Shulman fears that employers will notice this and discriminate against young women when hiring or promoting. Bosses will assume that a man (or a woman well past childbearing age) won’t ask for parental leave or a three-day work week a few months into a new role.
Advocates of mothers’ rights in the workplace argue that the solution is to encourage dads to play a more active role in parenting. If employers see men and women take up flexible work provisions in equal numbers, they won’t have any reason to discriminate against mums.
But this view has only had limited success. Although gender roles are gradually changing, both men and women have proved remarkably resistant to social change when it is foisted on them by well meaning governments and sociologists.
New pro-family National Employment Standards will come into force in January next year in Australia, and may inadvertently lead to the sort of anti-mum discrimination that Shulman warns about. If so, don’t be surprised if high profile businesswomen start weighing in with their own warnings about women crashing back through the glass floor.
Jessica Brown is a Policy Analyst with the Social Foundations Program at The Centre for Independent Studies.
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