According to the Unicef report, Where do rich countries stand on child care?, only Belgium, Denmark, Lithuania, Norway and Slovenia provide free access for children under three.

When considering multiple factors, such as the quality, affordability and accessibility of early childhood education and care, it ranks Luxembourg, Iceland and Sweden as having the best childcare policies. Australia is ranked 37^th of the 41 countries surveyed.

The federal government has directed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to hold an inquiry into ECEC prices. An Australian Productivity Commission inquiry into the early childhood education and care sector began in March and is due to present a draft report to the government in November and a final report by 30 June 2024.

How often do BPW members find they have to explain the gender pay gap?  Surely, we’ve had equal pay since the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1984? 

Yes – we have equal pay for equal work; you can’t pay different rates for men and women doing the same job.  But this has not delivered pay equity.  The jobs that women do are simply not valued the same as work that men do, and women tend to be relegated to lower pay roles than men in workplaces. We don’t have pay equity – there is a significant gender pay gap across and within Australia’s workplaces.

Ruby Leahy Gatfield, Head of Research and Insights at Future Women, has written a helpful explanation that will be useful to clubs planning their Equal Pay Day events this year.

Closing the Gender Pay Gap – why it matters

BPW Australia (the Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women), founder of Equal Pay Day Alliance, has advocated for action on gender pay inequity for over 70 years.

In 2023, BPW Australia is again joining the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) call to take action to close the gender pay gap.

WGEA is an Australian Government statutory agency created by the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012. The Agency is charged with promoting and improving gender equality in the Australian Workplaces. On 30 March 2023, Parliament passed the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023. The reforms aim to accelerate workplace gender equality in Australia.

In 2023, equal pay day is 25th August, marking 56 days additional days from the end of the previous financial year that women must work, on average, to earn the same amount as men earnt that year. Progress in the past four years has been slow, with only a change from 59 days in 2019 to 56 days now.

“The Workplace Gender Equality Agency reporting provides overwhelming evidence that when employers analyse their data for pay gaps and take clear actions, their pay gap reduces,” Jacqueline Graham, President BPW Australia said.

International experience has also shown that publishing employer gender pay gaps can lead companies to prioritise gender equality and to a lowering of employer gender pay gaps. In the UK, research indicates it motivated some employers to narrow the wage gap between men and women. These reforms will encourage employers to deploy and drive workplace policies, practices and environments that support gender equality, creating meaningful shifts in Australian working life.

BPW Australia will be joining WGEA in the 56-day countdown to help continue and increase the momentum of change.

“Gender equality and gender diversity at work is not just nice to have. Gender equity is a basic human right, but its achievement also brings socio-economic benefits to everyone. By empowering women, the broader community thrives, increasing productivity and growth,” Jacqueline said.

“Australia’s Gender Pay Gap reflects gender gaps across our society. Equal Pay Day is a marker pointing to where we need to improve, to fully harness the talent of every Australian. It is not simple to do – there is no one answer - but we can make change, if we act.” Jacqueline said.

According to the WGEA Gender Equality Scorecard, women comprise only 41% of managerial roles across all professions and the same is true in sales, with only 38% of manager roles being occupied by women. Additionally, the most recent pay gap data shows women, on average earn $26,596 less than men each year, so even though there are more women entering sales roles, they aren’t being equally rewarded for sales success. 

Smart Company’s article, Closing the deal on women in sales, reports that sales roles, like many other professions, have long been the domain of men who have used their role as a stepping stone for many to launch a successful career as a business leader. In Australia, that gender imbalance may be changing, with recent data showing a relatively equal number of females and males now in general sales roles. However, it hasn’t moved up the pipeline yet, and there is still a very obvious imbalance in the number of female leaders.  

Reporting on this year's 67th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the Women’s Rights Caucus welcomed the adoption of the agreed conclusions for the theme “Innovation and Technological Change and Education in the Digital Age for Achieving Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls.” This included the renewal of a global commitment to achieving inclusive gender equality, despite significant pushback on fundamental issues within this agenda. They were encouraged to see continued multilateral support to advance the human rights of women and girls in all their diversity, as reflected in this year’s outcome.

CSW67_Agreed Conclusions

A consortium led by Women for Election (WFE) and including several gender-specialist organisations, has been awarded a $5 million federal grant over 5 years, to help increase the representation and diversity of women in public office.

Women for Election is non-partisan, with more than 2500 women across the political spectrum registering for events since 2019. A number of those women have gone on to launch campaigns or support the campaigns of other women, with some also being elected now at all levels of government.

Women for Election CEO Licia Heath told Women’s Agenda that 43 alumni ran in last year’s Federal election, and 2 of the 20 WFE alumni who ran in the recent NSW state election were elected.  Even those who didn’t gain a seat held others to a higher standard and inspired greater involvement of other women and girls to see themselves as future political leaders. Win or lose, in every contest that a woman stands, they help to shape the agenda and influence the outcome. 

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Penny Wong, has appointed Stephanie Copus-Campbell AM as the Ambassador for Gender Equality.

The Ambassador for Gender Equality is a lead advocate for Australia’s work on gender equality and the human rights of women and girls.

The Ambassador engages in international advocacy, public diplomacy, and outreach in support of Australian Government policies and programs to:

• ·         promote gender equality
• ·         eradicate sexual and gender-based violence
• ·         eliminate discrimination against women and girls, and persons of diverse gender identities
• ·         ensure better educational and health (including sexual and reproductive maternal health) opportunities and outcomes for women and girls
• ·         enhance the participation of women in decision-making and leadership
• ·         implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda

Stephanie has extensive experience working across the public, private, philanthropic and community sectors in Australia and the Indo Pacific. She has served as head of Australia’s bilateral aid programs with Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tuvalu and head of Australia’s Pacific Regional programs. She has also worked in senior executive roles with CARE Australia and the Oil Search Foundation.

In 2018, the PNG Government appointed Stephanie as Chair of the Southern Highlands Provincial Health Authority Board. She is also the founding Director on the Femili PNG Board (providing services to survivors of family and sexual violence) and actively involved in a not for profit, social impact coffee business that supports female coffee growers in PNG with all profits funding domestic violence services in PNG.

The handbook for NGOs prepared for the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York last month includes an excellent explanation of how the United Nations is structured and operates and how CSW was established. 

It also has a section starting at page 20 on digital advocacy for women's organisations that is a great toolkit for BPW clubs.  Use it to start a discussion at your club – how can you promote your campaigns through digital platforms and empower women in your locality and your state?

BPW International was invited to give an Oral Statement at the 2023 session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York last month. The statement was read by our BPW International Vice President, Chularat Israngkool Na Ayutthaya, from Thailand.

You can listen to BPW International’s CSW statement or read it.

Australia’s Treasury Department has published their research on how children affect the earnings of men and women in Australia. The authors use HILDA survey data to show the arrival of children has a large and persistent impact on the gender pay gap, reducing female earnings by 55% on average in the first 5 years of parenthood.

Personal income tax data shows this gap improves only slightly but remains high in the 10 years following the arrival of children. The authors attribute the gap to lower participation rates and reduced working hours amongst mothers. Although the decline in earnings for women is very similar regardless of their breadwinner status in the household pre-children, women with greater access to workplace flexibility are more likely to remain employed after having children.