CEPAR Chief Investigator Marian Baird, Professor of Gender and Employment Relations in the University of Sydney Business School, has once again been recognised in Apolitical’s list of the 100 world’s most influential people in gender policy for 2019.
Professor Baird shares the Top 100 list with three Australians:
- Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister and chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership
- Libby Lyons, Director, Workplace Gender Equality Agency
- Jeni Klugman, Fellow, Kennedy School of Government’s Women in Public Policy Program
Commenting on her listing for the second consecutive year, Professor Baird said she was “very honoured to serve as an academic who is able to apply our research to the gender policy world.”
“I am privileged to be an academic who is able to be active in important policy areas that improve the working lives of women in our region,” Professor Baird said. “I also greatly appreciate the security and support I receive from colleagues and the University of Sydney Business School.”
Marian Baird is one of Australia’s leading researchers in the fields of women, work and care. In 2016, she was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for outstanding services to improving the quality of women’s working lives and for contributions to tertiary education. She is a Chief Investigator and Director of Mentoring at CEPAR, Head of the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies and Co-Director of the Women, Work and Leadership Research Group in the University of Sydney Business School. In 2018, she was appointed Presiding Pro-Chancellor of the University of Sydney.
Marian Baird’s disciplinary background is industrial relations and her research focus is gender and employment, in particular, how regulation and social norms interact to produce different labour market outcomes for women and men. She has received numerous grants from business and government to study gender equitable organisational change and work and family.
Professor Baird’s research takes a life cycle approach, and her influential research on maternity leave in Australia led to the introduction of Australia’s first paid parental leave scheme. Her current research program continues the field of work and family for women and men, with an additional focus on men and parental leave, as well as mature age workers and organisational responses to the shifting demographics of the Australian labour market, which is being undertaken as part of CEPAR's research program.
The annual Top 100 list recognises the pioneering work in gender policy in academia, government, politics, philanthropy, international organisations, NGOs and advocacy. This year’s Top 100 were drawn from over 9,000 nominations from academia, government, and international and non-governmental organisations including the United Nations, The World Bank, Women in Global Health, and more. Apolitical is a global network for governments and public sectors in more than 120 countries, established in 2015 to share ideas and solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.