The UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will take place from 6 to 17 March 2023 in New York. Many BPW members around the world have been able to attend CSW and its parallel events as delegates and observers over the years.  Additionally, BPW International runs its own program for our members during CSW in New York.

BPW International has Consultative Status with a range of high-level UN bodies including with ECOSOC, the UN Economic and Social Council, and UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.  CSW is a functional commission of ECOSOC, and the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and women's rights. CSW is instrumental in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women.

The Priority theme for this year is innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. CSW will also review the 2022 theme, which was challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls.

BPW Australia advocated strongly for pay transparency over recent years, and it is now finally legislated as a workplace right.  We will monitor whether this leads to greater pay equity in Australia.

Research assessing the impact of pay transparency policy on Canadian universities reveals that disclosure led to a 4% pay increase for female staff that was not evident in universities that kept pay secret.  However, the reasons seem to be systemic rather than personal – when salaries are open to public scrutiny, the universities are more conscious of the negative implications of attracting and retaining staff if gender inequity was evident in their employment practices.

BPW Australia has long partnered with COSBOA – Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, and two BPWA Presidents have chaired the Council’s Leadership Team.

Two of COSBOA's current projects align strongly with BPWA aims, both funded under the Australian Government’s Women’s Leadership and Development Program: 

The Academy for Enterprising Girls is a fun and exciting entrepreneurship program, available FREE to all young women in Australia aged 10 – 18, The Academy is designed to cultivate young women’s skills in design thinking, entrepreneurial and business skills.

This is complemented by the Accelerator for Enterprising Women  is designed to support and empower young women aged 18 to 24 years to create self-made Job Maker career paths, pursue entrepreneurship as a viable career choice and to ensure Australia’s next generation of businesswomen have the skills required to run their own businesses and transform the industries in which they work.

Heather Ridout AO has been appointed as Australia’s Consul-General in New York, the first woman to be appointed to this role. A former Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group, Ms Ridout brings four decades of experience to the role. She is currently Director of Sims Ltd and Director of Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Limited.

Other newly appointed women include Sophie Davies as Australia’s Ambassador to Brazil, Sonya Koppe as Australia’s High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Minoli Perera as Australia’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, and Phoebe Smith as Australia’s High Commissioner to the Cook Islands.

Senator Penny Wong also announced the appointment of Stephanie Copus-Campbell as Australia’s next Ambassador for Gender Equality.  She takes over from the outgoing Ambassador for Women and Girls, Christine Clarke CSC and will deepen Australia’s international engagement on gender equality by advocating the importance of women’s human rights, ending gender-based violence, women’s economic empowerment, and the leadership of women and girls. 

Science & Technology Australia established the Superstars of STEM program in 2017.  It is designed to propel Australian women of STEM into the spotlight, and has so far promoted 150 women leaders of STEM. Meet the 2022 Superstars of STEM.

Science & Technology Australia offers a range of workshops, programs, and events which empower the members and staff of their member organisations.

The Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation has released its first Australian Women’s Health and Wellbeing Scorecard: Towards equity for women, which will be produced annually. The MCHRI annual scorecard captures women’s health and wellbeing outcomes in Australia, documenting progress over time.

The Scorecard shows that Australian women disproportionately have lower income, less engagement in the labour force and poorer health than men.  While economic indicators are improving for women, data shows that the gender gap has remained for all indicators (income, superannuation, labour force engagement and health) except unemployment.  At these rates it will take 70 years to reach equality on full time employment, and more than 200 years to reach equity on income.

These gender inequities are negatively affecting the economy as well. The report shows that women’s labour force absence cost $72 billion in lost GDP annually.

BPW clubs worldwide can access personal and professional development resources on the BPW International website. This BPW International webinar is presented by the Standing Committee for Development, Training and Employment.  It is introduced and facilitated by Standing Committee Chair Francesca Burack, with contributions from Standing Committee members including our own Director of Policy and BPWA Vice President Angela Tomazos.

Want to get more done? Have an idea that you would like to implement, but don't have enough resources or time? Need to get more people or another organisation involved? Watch the video to understand how Collaboration will help you accomplish a common goal, extend your network, increase your skills and impact our members and women around the world.

The recent series of international Leaders’ Summits produced 3 comprehensive statements with observations, data, declarations and commitments.  It’s always interesting to perform a gender analysis on these documents to assess how influential the international women's policy machinery has been in impacting the focus of the leaders’ debates, decisions and conclusions.  It’s telling how far you have to read before women or gender is mentioned, given we are more than 50% of the population.

The Declaration of the big international G20 Summit in Bali first mentions women at paragraph 46 out of 52 – a single paragraph.  Two others mention gender.

The Declaration of the regional Asia Pacific APEC meeting in Bangkok mentions women at paragraph 19 out of 23 – again, a single paragraph.

Women have much more of a focus in the Statement of the more local ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Cambodia, with paragraphs 19, 20 and 83 out of 106 specific to women and additional mentions in several other paragraphs.

The G20 and APEC statements suggest women’s organisations need to step our international advocacy but the ASEAN focus is reassuring.  This is where BPW Australia can have the most impact. 

The Fair Work Commission’s decision to offer a 15% interim wage increase – while continuing to consider a full 25% increase – is informed by the findings of 2018 Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. The FWC recognised that work in feminised industries – including care work – has been historically undervalued and that the reason for that undervaluation is likely to be gender-based.  It recommended a 25% wage increase for aged care workers which is backed by unions.

The Royal Commission reported that a wages gap exists between aged care workers and workers performing equivalent functions in the acute health sector. Successive governments have made several failed attempts to address that gap by providing additional funds to providers in the hope that they would be passed on to aged care workers by way of increased wages. They were not.

BPW Australia has passed resolutions and advocated strongly for work and family balance to support women who combine paid work with caring responsibilities for children or adult family members.

The Senate has established a Select Committee on Work and Care which released an interim report on 18 October.  It is examining the ways in which the combination of work and care responsibilities is impacting on the lives and wellbeing of Australians. The report includes a range of recommendations on gathering data about how workers manage their caring responsibilities, analysing wage structures in the care economy, extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks, and increasing funding to First Nations community-controlled Early Childhood Education and Care.  It also recommends amendments to the Fair Work Act to require fairness in rostering staff, allow better access to flexible work options and legislate the right to disconnect from work when working from home.

Read the analysis in The Conversation:  https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2022/10/24/switching-off-for-work-life-balance/