Inside the 'black box': women accountants in small firms

Research on women’s employment conditions has been based on the experiences of women in large organisations. There is little information about women’s employment and their employment conditions in small businesses. This paper is the first and preliminary analysis of a segment of the findings from a survey of CPA Australia members working in small firms. The paper reports on employment conditions that may assist women to combine paid work and family care responsibilities such as parental leave and family care leave, as well as part-time work. The research concludes that employment in small firms does not offer these conditions as extensively as large firms.