The Life during COVID-19 survey ran from May 1 to June 9 2020 and had 7,306 participants from around Australia. It was the first survey in the Families in Australia Survey series. The findings in this report are drawn from the first analyses of the survey data.

COVID-19 lockdowns have radically changed the working arrangements for millions of workers.The findings in this paper raise important questions with respect to the large numbers of workers for whom telework is not possible at all, and who could find themselves jobless as a consequence of the pandemic.

With many regular workplaces shut down to 'flatten the curve' of COVID-19, millions of Australians are now shifting their work to home. This paper surveys the scope of home work, considers its impacts on economic and gender inequality, and proposes several policy recommendations to make home work safer and fairer.

The main motivation of this paper is to assess whether gender-related persistence in job flexibility outcomes, as measured by work hours and commuting distance, prevents further closing of gender gaps.

The key finding in this briefing paper is that casual workers vary substantially in their characteristics, making it hard to generalise about what a short-term or long-term casual worker looks like.