The mood of the nation is palpably slipping into depression.
This week the press continues to run big on our economic woes with the RBA's assessment that Australia is already in recession.
The Australian Industry Group is warning of huge job losses.
Even Treasurer Wayne Swan is admitting it’s all much worse than he was hoping it would be.
The AMP.NATSEM Income and Wealth Report 'She works hard for the money' gave some finance writers a break from the doom and gloom.
AMP Financial Services Managing Director Craig Meller pitched the findings as about wage equality, saying that Gen Y is the first generation where the wages of women are almost on par with men.
"So while much progress has been made, this report tells us that there is still more work to be done to narrow the gender divide, particularly in the child-rearing years, so that when women leave and re-enter the workforce they don't fall behind their male counterparts."
That the media ran with this angle is no surprise given that this was the pitch made in AMP's press release.
Ministry angle: work/life balance
However I think the real interest - especially for churches - should be the findings about women and 'work/life balance'.
The report finds that home/work conflict is by far a bigger stress for women than for men.
Half of employed women feel rushed or pressed for time compared with only a third of employed men.
The reason? Women are still doing the majority of the child-rearing and housework, despite working long hours.
The difference is shown in the amount of time men pitch in to help with the kids and housework. Full-time women with children spend 15 hours per week doing the cooking and cleaning compared with only six hours per week for men.
Link to divorce
In 2005, I co-authored a report with Tracey Gordon and Andrew Cameron from Sydney Diocese's Social Issues Executive on "Home/work conflict and relational well-being" that in my mind decisively showed that modern work patterns can be a major factor in divorce.
Our analysis of a random sample of over 1500 Australians showed a consistently negative connection between those who find it hard to juggle home and work life, and those who have an unhealthy relationship with their spouse or de facto partner.
This was consistent across our four indicators of relationship health: including the couples' expectation they will split up, their level of intimacy, their level of harmony and conflict over gender roles.
Indeed amongst those Australians who 'regularly' find their work conflicting with their home life, 41 percent had difficulty agreeing on gender roles with their spouse or de facto partner.
Yet, even more deeply, looking at the consistency of the data across the 'relationship health' indicators led us to speculate that allowing home/work stress to fester will lead a relationship into a fatal downward spiral.
The big question
So given that as churches we want to be strengthening marriages and family life, what can we do to help men and women in our congregations to better navigate these conflicts of home/work balance and gender roles?
