Participation in Paid and Unpaid Work: Rhetoric, Policy and Realities for Women in the 'Year of the Family'

Abstract

The rhetoric of the year of the family is celebrative, encouraging, and cognisant of the variety of family forms: 'it is a year for us to celebrate families in New Zealand and it is also a time to focus on ways we can help families to carry out their very important task of raising their children'. It hints at the desirability of equality within the family, and of community/state support, with the comment that one result expected to be achieved is 'Formal recognition by the nation of on-going support for the family as the essential unit in which each member is important and has recognised status'. It even recognises, with the police campaign 'Not Just a Domestic', the problem of domestic violence, although not that it is overwhelmingly male violence.