August report for Society Culture and Health

5 August 2020

New grants/funding

Smith JP, Stewart MA, Workshops, ‘Human rights, gender budgeting and progressing breastfeeding policy in Australia: 2020 online workshops and new resources to guide action and build capacity for research-informed

Outreach and engagement

Smith, JP. Invited speaker, World Breastfeeding Week webinar presentation to Lactation Consultants of Australia and New Zealand (LCANZ) on ‘Is the global formula boom maladaptive? Breastfeeding as the evolved infant and young child feeding system for human and planetary health’, 2 August 2020.

Smith, JP. Interviewed live by Radio 2CC/2CA, Canberra on Australian breastfeeding data 5 July 2020

Smith, JP. Organised and chaired ANU Crawford School of Public Policy online webinar and workshop series Gender responsive budgeting and the Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy:

Smith, JP. Interviewed by Washington Post Stephanie Murray June 2020, published as ‘Breastfeeding isn’t free. What if that work was included in the GDP? ‘What we measure reflects what we value and shapes what we do’, Washington Post Lily  6 July, https://www.thelily.com/breastfeeding-isnt-free-what-if-that-work-was-included-in-the-gdp/

Smith JP, Human rights, gender budgeting, and breastfeeding friendly childcare: The ANBS and public investments in quality care for infants and young children, ANU Crawford School of Public Policy online webinar and workshop series Gender responsive budgeting and the Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy, 27 July 2020.

Smith JP, Gender Budgeting for Breastfeeding – Addressing and Prioritising the invisible IYCF economy in economic statistics and budget policymaking’, ANU Crawford School of Public Policy online webinar and workshop series Gender responsive budgeting and the Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy, 18 May 2020.

Other News

Tehzeeb Zulfiqar, Christine LaBond, Liana Leach and Cathy Banwell contributed content and advice for an online module on the Social and Cultural Determinants of Contact tracing in collaboration with the MPH team. Funding for developing the e-module was provided by TEPHINET (Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Intervention Network) and was developed in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and ACT Health. The training module will be available to field epidemiology trainees globally and is now live on the WHO/GOARN COVID-19 Knowledge Hub.

Papers accepted/published

Dinh, H., Martin, A., Leach, L.S, Strazdins, L., Nicholson, J., Martin., & Cooklin., A.R. Is self-employment a good option? Gender, parents and the work-family interface. Sex Roles. Accepted 23/06/2020.

Self-employment is likely to influence the gendered dynamics of work and care for parents of young children. This paper tested a theoretical model investigating the effect a transition into self-employment has on the work-family interface, for mothers and fathers. We used national, cohort data of Australian parents’ employment transitions over 5 time points (2004-2012), with n=4165 observations from mothers and n=5059 from fathers. For fathers, self-employment yielded longer work hours, higher work-family conflicts, but lower family-work conflicts, and enhanced enrichment. For mothers, self-employment heralded fewer work hours, lower work-family conflicts, but higher family-work conflicts. Results suggest that moving into self-employment ties fathers to ‘breadwinning’ (long hours); and mothers to fitting work more squarely around children’s care needs. Self-employment may entrench gender inequities in paid work opportunities, bringing caution to the current view of self-employment as a ‘solution’ to the work-family dilemma.