Gender equality in Australia – what are the issues?

The majority of women in the workplace in Australia occupy lower paying and lower skilled positions; they are more likely to be working in precarious employment; and take on part time work rather than full time work.

In Australia, women are more likely to occupy lower status jobs than men and be in the workplace for a shorter period of time. This means that they are more vulnerable to poverty, end up getting less superannuation and are worse off than their male counterparts on retirement.

Inequality Number 2 – Women are promoted less and earn less:

Women are less likely than men to be promoted and to attain management and leadership positions. Women are only 2% of chairs of ASX200 companies and hold only 8.3% board of directorships in Australia.

Furthermore, the EOWWA (Equal Opportunity Women in the Workplace Agency) found in a 2008 report that differences in salaries between men and women CEOs are up to 50 percent, leaving no doubt about the gender pay gap, particularly within the top ASX companies.

In addition, the gender gap in Australia according to the World Economic Forum report 2011, is 0.72, which means that men are generally earning almost thirty percent more than women in Australia.

The Gender gap in earnings is particularly concerning considering that women are approximately 85 percent of single-parent families, yet they are still overall earning significantly less than men. The worst case in Australia is in the insurance and finance industry, where women are only making 40% of what their male colleagues are.

Inequality Number 3 – Women are under-represented in Australian Government:

Women are grossly under-represented in our government. In the World Gender Report, in terms of gender Gap for political empowerment, Australia occupies position 39 out of 134, with a subindex score of what equates to 20% equality or a gap of 80% in favour of men in political participation.

Not only are we under represented in government, but also women in Government in Australia are subject to negative attitudes by their male colleagues. An example of such behaviour was last month when our Finance Minister, Penny Wong, was meowed at during question time in Parliament. This is just one indicator of some remaining discriminative perceptions of women in our government.

Inequality Number 4 – Women undertake significantly more of the household work and childrearing than men:

The division of household work is largely unfair to women in Australia. In a study by ABS on how Australians spend their time, it was found that women in Australia spend at least three times as much time looking after children then men. The same study found that women are undertaking almost twice as much of the housework in families with children, than men.