July Article of the Month

The authors of our July Article of the Month, Christine Ablaza, Francisco Perales, and Nicki Elkin examine the experiences of LGBTQ+ people in today’s highly flexible labour market. On top of the established points that as a cohort, LGBTQ+ people experience higher rates of unemployment, lower job satisfaction, and slower career progression, they find evidence that LGBTQ people experience flexibility more negatively than the population as a whole. Not only are they more likely to be employed in problematic non-standard arrangements, but when they are, they are more likely to be negatively impacted by these arrangements. They experience the ‘double whammy’. The research draws on very recent data in the 2024 Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) Employee Survey, which provides not only a large sample overall, but a large sample of LGBTQ+ respondents. Using this, it adds weight to ideas associated with minority-stress theory and examines how economic insecurity can interact with other factors that impact well-being. While the authors are reticent to over-state the causes of their findings – weighting the push and pull factors that lead members of this population into non-standard work is not level when considered at the level of the population, for example – this is nonetheless immediately and powerfully policy-pertinent. It is sure to be widely read and drawn on beyond academic circles.