Household gender regimes - what can we learn from census income data?

The paper focuses on gender relations and considers the value of aggregate income data, generated by the national census. It draws on concepts of gender order and gender regimes as well as a typology of relations of social reproduction. Utilising these concepts we examine the changing nature of gender relations and inequality in Australia between 2006 and 2011. We ask whether we can use data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in its census of population and housing to monitor changing patterns of income generation within families over time and across space within Australia? We further ask, can this data tell us much about either the changing patterns of gender relations in the domestic sphere or the changing levels of inequality in Australia?