The impact of such additional responsibilities, the research noted, leaves women with a lot fewer hours in the day to do their professional work.

While speaking on The Lawyers Weekly Show recently, barrister Jane Needham SC, who is the former president of the NSW Bar Association, reflected on the benefits or otherwise of flexible working arrangements, which purport to allow professionals to undertake and complete their work in a manner that makes sense to them.

It is problematic, Ms Needham mused, that by virtue of the way that societal expectations are structured, such arrangements are predominantly taken up by women.

Moreover, technological advancements have created an environment whereby everyone can and should be on email – unless explicitly stated otherwise.

“I often clean up my emails after the kids have gone to bed. So, they’ll lights off at 9:00pm or so, then I’ll have a bit of a relax, and then at 9:30-10:00pm, I’ll do a bit of an email reply. And I realised that, unwittingly, I was probably putting my juniors and my solicitors under pressure, because if you get a 10:00pm email from a silk saying, ‘I’d like you to do this’, you might do it,” she said.

“And so, what I’ve done on my home laptop, and on my phone, I’ve put an email footer, which says, ‘If this email is sent out of hours, it’s because it’s convenient to me, and unless it’s specifically requested, I don’t expect a response outside of working hours’.”

It is, too often, the women who have to put in place such measures, by virtue of the unpaid hours gender disparity. And, if not properly managed, flexible working arrangements can’t effectively combat it, she surmised.

VIEW ALL

“I think that kind of normalisation of flexible working – and demonstrating that while an employer, or a leader of a team – it doesn’t really matter if it’s done with someone sitting at a desk, or whether they’re at home, or whether they’re waiting in a doctor’s office. It’s important for people who’ve done it, and who’ve thrived on it, to share their experiences, and let people know how it has worked.”

Knowledge sharing about what works and doesn’t work among women who have to work flexibly and juggle home life is crucial, Ms Needham submitted, but so is ensuring that one’s spouse or partner or family members are cognisant of the burdens that women in the boutique space are up against.

As a leader of junior barristers, she does this – and stresses that others must do the same to combat the unpaid hours disparity that flexible working isn’t necessarily addressing.

“One of my juniors has heard me complaining a lot about income disparity, working hours disparity, the unpaid burden. And he came back from his winter holiday saying, ‘I told my wife that I was going to do all of the unpaid labor, all of the emotional labor on our holiday, because I was there, and I did’. And he said, ‘Oh my God, it’s exhausting’,” she said.

“And I said, ‘Yes, welcome to the world’. Because even, guys who are aware of gender barriers, and aware of inequality and discrimination, generally still don’t do that extra 30 per cent of work that generally women do. And I really think it has to be changed on that level, that level of, this is the problem, and you need to be part of the solution.”

on the same episode, Ms Needham said that the gender divide on unpaid hours is not changing quickly enough. 

To listen to Jerome's full conversation with Jane Needham, click below: