The regulation of work, and the social and political institutions that underpin it, have been a prominent issue in public policy in Australia for over a century. This chapter falls into three sections. In the first, we discuss the nature of successive work/care regimes distinguishing breadwinner man/caring woman from more recent forms of social reproduction where women do both paid work and household care. In the second, we outline recent data about the effects of the current work/care arrangements on women and men using evidence from the Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI) survey. In the third, we turn to the future and policy changes that would help relieve the work/care strains that negatively affect many workers.

Work and its settings have been sites of some of Australia's most bitter public policy fights and deep social division. The fierce strikes of the 1890s – that saw shearers and maritime workers fighting for their right to bargain collectively rather than individually – heavily influenced the shape of the federation settlement and the industrial and conciliation institutions that persisted for most of the 20th century (Turner, 1978). In the early decades of union organising such struggles were often bitter, prolonged and bloody. These disputes continued into the late 20th century, such as the 1998 maritime dispute and later still the 2007 campaign against the decollectivising ‘Work Choices’ proposals of the Howard Government (Muir, 2008).

Elsewhere in this volume, Buchanan and Oliver point to some key categories that are essential for understanding the heat in this area of public policy. Beyond these categories are other important concepts and issues that arise out of the social location of work and the fact that no production or formal employment can occur without the social production of workers and society. Beneath the world of production and paid work lies the essential domain of social reproduction and unpaid work. These domains exist in a tight embrace. However, the nature of this relationship varies under different public policy and gender regimes. Understanding the mechanisms and means of social reproduction is essential to understanding the world of work, and the public policy debates that flow around it.