Working Together for Equality.pdf

Proud to again share collaborative work that BPW provided content on with 51 organisations, networks, alliances and individuals across Australia .

Our input is reflected in critical area - Women and the economy. ( Section 2.6) 

Thanks to the work of Carole Shaw and Sharen Page , ES4W , that coordinated and gained agreement from all involved to work together to produce a report on the 12 critical areas and emerging and persistent areas . This report will be presented to Australian Civil Society and the Australian Government . A huge effort to produce in time for InterGovernmental Meeting on Beijing+25 due to be held at UN ESCAP 26 to 29 November, 2019 in Bangkok. 

https://www.agec.org.au/our-manifesto/

In April this year , Australian Gender Equality Council (AGEC) held it's annual forum in Melbourne. BPW President and Director of Policy joined 20 other organisations to develop a Manifesto for Gender Equality. A living document to guide us with our endeavours

After months of consultation , we are delighted to share the final document that was launched by AGEC in October. 

We are extremely proud of the result and the importance of this document as the charter of AGEC’s work and purpose that aligns with BPW members aims.

Women tend to be at a financial disadvantage to men because of career breaks or because they choose to do more in unpaid work, but this is not the full story. Economic inequality starts early with gender gaps for after-school jobs and graduate salaries, and then widens the longer a woman stays in the workforce and into retirement.

While an evolution of the workforce is underway, bigger ideas are needed to fast track economic equality in the school system, the workforce, society and at home. Financy Women’s Index (FWX) lists ten big ideas that would make a transformational impact in the quest for financial equality in Australia. These ideas are the result of brainstorming efforts by the FWX advisory panel and economic Security4Women – the National Women's Alliance that BPW Australia established and continues to support.

A new report from the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute examines the changing landscape of university-to-employment transitions in Australia. The authors report that over her career, the median female graduate will earn over $600,000 more than the median female with no post-school qualifications. Male graduates enjoy a larger graduate earnings premium over their lifetime, at around $790,000 more than males without non-school qualifications. The Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA). data for 2016 shows that a bachelor’s degree increases individual earnings by 56% for men and 38% for women, compared with attainment of Year 11 or below.

To some extent this can be attributed to technology: the rapid evolution in the scope, capacities, and employment impacts of new innovations like artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, and big data analysis. But other disruptive forces at work include dramatic changes in work organisation, business models and employment relationships in the context of global structural change: demographic, environmental and globalisation. Given that technology is neither neutral nor uncontrollable, shifting focus to the social and institutional influences on the world of work, and the collective capacity of society to regulate and shape that world, empowers society to take the future of work more actively into its own hands.

McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2019 report identifies that the biggest obstacle women face on the path to senior leadership is at the first step up to manager. For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 72 women are promoted. This broken rung at the first step up to manager is the biggest obstacle that women face on the path to leadership.  It results in more women getting stuck at the entry level and fewer women becoming managers, so men end up holding 62% percent of manager-level positions.

This early inequality has a long-term impact on the talent pipeline. Since male managers significantly outnumber women, the number of women decreases at each subsequent level. So it’s impossible for women to climb fast enough to catch up. But fixing the broken rung could add one million more women to management in corporate America over the next 3 years.

Sheryl Sandberg, LeanIn.Org founder and COO, and Rachel Thomas, LeanIn.Org president, state that the broken rung is not attributable to women pausing careers to take care of children or to gender differences in ambition – it’s simply bias.

Essays on Equality is a new publication from the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership. Written by GIWL researchers, members of the Advisory Council and leading researchers and campaigners, this essay collection provides research-informed reflections on the fight for women’s equality.  Although it tends to be UK-centric, they offer practical solutions to help create a fairer, more equal world.

The foreword by Julia Gillard, CEO of the GIWL, is followed by short opinion pieces by expert writers including

·         Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark, who reminds us that we all gain from gender equality, so it is everyone’s responsibility.

·         Senior Research Fellow Dr Rose Cook who questions whether the huge growth in diversity and inclusion activities, and the millions invested in them, is actually making a difference.

·         Professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic explains that by mistaking confidence and charisma for competence, we end up with poorer leaders and fewer women at the top.

·         Research Associate Emma Kinloch who tackles the thorny issue of Brexit, critiquing the ways in which women have been excluded or undermined during the UK’s negotiations for a deal with the EU.

·         Professor Iris Bohnet, Academic Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School, and colleagues on what venture capitalists could learn from orchestra directors who have combatted gender bias through blind recruitment processes.

·         Research Associate Laura Jones who argues more fundamental structural and cultural changes are needed to make workplaces fairer.

·         Diva Dhar from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who examines the gap in unpaid care work, which she argues must be better analysed and researched.

·         Sam Smethers, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, who argues expanding gender pay gap reporting, equalising parental leave and mandating flexible working could drive real progress in improving women’s working lives.

In Australia, many parents with young children rely on childcare to enable them to fulfil their working commitments. While parents may rely on a particular type of childcare, it cannot be assumed that it represents their preferred option. This is just one of many areas where women's compromises are misinterpreted as women's choices.

Researchers at the Centre for Independent Studies report that 2/3 of working mothers said they would like the option of using subsidies they receive for formal childcare to instead help subsidise informal childcare – even if it meant receiving a lower subsidy overall.   Mothers identified their most important priorities in selecting childcare as warmth of care-giving, location and cost/affordability.  

The research highlights a misalignment of priorities for childcare between governments and parents. Mothers tend to prioritise the wellbeing of their children, as indicated by nominating ‘warmth of care-giving’ as their most important priority. The other top priorities relate to practical considerations of cost and location rather than the regulated ‘quality’ aspects of childcare, as indicated by staff credentials and early learning.

Experienced Board member Nicole Donegan, CEO of Women on Boards, has learned that a great CV doesn’t always translate to a great interview for a Board role. She advises that your CV may get your foot in the interview door, but the clincher to your success will be your ability to interview well for the position.

Her top preparation tips before an interview include: reviewing the requirements in the ad and researching the organisational strategies and directions; being thoroughly prepared to promote your relevant skills and provide examples to demonstrate these; keeping your responses to questions at strategic board level, not operational level; and relating your responses to how you will add value to the organisation rather than your own professional development.

Until 1994, no Australian woman was allowed to list their legal status as "farmer". Instead, women on the land were officially defined as unproductive "silent partners", "domestics", "helpmates", or even "farmers' wives". That was only 25 years ago.

This impacted on the tax paid by farming families.  I recall a family on the Eyre Peninsula where he was the local chemist and she was a farmer, but the tax department attributed her farm income to her husband because a woman couldn’t be recognised as a farmer. 

BPW Australia had many rural clubs at the time, so we lobbied the federal government to recognise that women who owned or managed farms must be recognised as farmers for all government purposes.  This change was achieved, but women farmers remain invisible.

To address this, the Australian Research Council has funded a 3 year study called Invisible Farmer which involves a nation-wide partnership between rural communities, academics, government and cultural organisations. The project aims to create new histories of rural Australia, reveal the hidden stories of women on the land, recognise the diverse, innovative and vital role of women in agriculture and stimulate public discussions about contemporary issues facing rural Australia and its future.

Journalist and author Annabel Crabb’s new Quarterly Essay titled “Men At Work: Australia’s Parenthood Trap”, she highlights the contrasting reactions to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison both juggling their roles as parents.  She questions the way male leaders are treated compared to their female counterparts, asking: why do we accept that fathers will be absent? Why are female leaders being asked how they juggle their roles when key male figures with small children are never asked about it?

In her earlier book [The Wife Drought: Why Women Need Wives and Men Need Lives], Annabel observed that feminism had fundamentally changed the way women conduct their lives. But for men, nothing had changed. They still operated in precisely the same manner: marrying, having children and trotting off to work according to the 9-to-5 demands of business and for the most part enjoying better pay and conditions than their wives or female colleagues. She argued men would benefit enormously from spending more time with the children instead of missing out on this precious time.

In her latest work Annabel argues gender equity cannot be achieved “until men are as free to leave the workplace (when their lives demand it) as women are to enter it”. Women have benefited from the sentiment that ‘girls can do anything,’ then surely we should ensure that ‘boys can do anything’ means everything from home to work.