Disruptive Time: Parental Leave, Flexible Work, and Superannuation in Australia

Reproduction and child-rearing are distinctly gendered, temporalising acts in Australia. As such, reproduction is structured around temporalities of care and labour, and these temporalities emerge and disrupt established orderings in daily life, lifetimes, and larger-scale timelines. This thesis uncovers the underlying conception of time in the Australian legal regimes of parental leave, flexible work, and superannuation and its gendered connotations. As a socio-legal project, this thesis uses existing empirical evidence and theoretical material to conceptualise, critically analyse, and theorise the gendered temporalities of women with children in Australia. By constructing a feminist critique of neo-maternalistic productivism in Australia's parental leave, flexible work and superannuation systems, the thesis provides an alternate theory of disrupted temporalities in maternity.