{"id":1778,"date":"2012-09-14T11:13:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T11:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sidewaysthoughts.com\/blog\/?p=1778"},"modified":"2021-01-15T22:16:51","modified_gmt":"2021-01-15T22:16:51","slug":"gender-inequality-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidewaysthoughts.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/gender-inequality-in-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender inequality in Australia: It’s alive and well, mate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Australian<\/a><\/p>\n

Many thanks to the amazingly talented Theresa<\/a> for converting my research project into an incredible infograph.<\/p>\n

As a man, I feel slightly awkward talking about Australian gender inequality. Awkward as in a sense of shame of being the one not disadvantaged, exposed in my own culturally adopted subtle bias, and questioning whether I am betraying my own gender. My awkwardness quickly dissolves, however, when I consider the world I am preparing for my daughter and generations to follow.<\/p>\n

I would not consider myself a male feminist<\/a>, but once I became aware of the situation, I wonder how we got to this point and what can be done to change the situation.<\/p>\n

The leadership gap<\/h2>\n

What do you think of when you hear \u201cgender inequality\u201d? Up until my recent research project, I thought of developing countries that discriminated against women who did not have protection of our modern Australian policy protection measures. That is when I gave the topic any consideration at all, trusting the issue was being addressed with Australia\u2019s $US800 million contribution<\/a>\u00a0– 30 percent of its total OECD investment \u2013 towards supporting gender equality and women\u2019s empowerment in developing countries.<\/p>\n

I then stumbled across the Australian Bureau of Statistics Gender Indicators<\/a>\u00a0and had a hard time reconciling the numbers as they applied to my own country<\/a>. Females represent only three percent of CEOs, 8.4 percent of board directors and eight percent of executive key management personnel of the top 200 ASX companies.<\/p>\n

There surely must be a logical reason for this in our politically correct age of affirmative action.\u00a0 Is it because there are not that many women working? On the contrary, 45.3 percent of the total workforce is female.\u00a0 There are fewer females working, but not enough to explain the massive leadership gap.<\/p>\n

What we are seeing is a gender discrepancy between general participation and leadership. In Tasmania for example<\/a>, women make up 70 percent of the education sector but hold 37 percent of management positions. The lack of females attaining leadership roles explains in part the gender wage gap.<\/p>\n

The wage gap – industry and academic specialisation<\/h2>\n

\"Australian-Female-earning-on-the-male-dollar1-624x280\"<\/p>\n

The ABS data above<\/a>\u00a0shows women on average across all industries earn $0.68 on the male dollar. This decreases to $0.66 for all industries that have a greater population of males and increases to $0.71 for the average of all industries that have more females.<\/p>\n

Not only are females not represented in leadership roles, they are also not equally positioned to take advantage of higher-income industries.\u00a0 Of the top nine industries by wage potential, all but two have more males than females.\u00a0 It could be said then<\/a> that industrialised societies place less value on that which is considered \u201cfeminine\u201d than that which is considered to be \u201cmasculine\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is not looking to change anytime soon when considering candidates coming from academic institutions<\/a>.\u00a0 Fields such as education and health are predominantly female, while engineering, architecture and IT are male.\u00a0 Looking at who is taking what courses at school would infer that girls teach and heal while boys build.<\/p>\n

\"Female<\/a><\/p>\n

And yet women are generally more educated than men. Women completing secondary school has increased significantly from 15 percent in 1967 to current rates of 87 percent and exceeds male completion rates of 82 percent.\u00a0 Women are more likely to pursue further education and score higher in numeracy and reading comprehension scores.<\/p>\n

By the numbers, women are more educated and smarter, but earn less and have less success in obtaining leadership positions.\u00a0 With these factors in mind, increased female education rates can be seen as a tax on a gender struggling to compete on an uneven playing field.<\/p>\n

Carers and ability to be financially secure<\/h2>\n

A large contributing factor to the discrepancy is the propensity for women to not participate in the workforce during prime career years. Of the total population of females aged 20 to 74 years, 65.3 percent participate in the workforce as compared to 79.7 percent of males. This is due to females taking the role of caring for children and the elderly. Around 60 percent of primary carers aged 35 to 54 are female.<\/p>\n

Half of all mothers whose youngest child is under two years old and almost a third of mothers whose youngest child is between five and 11 are not employed in the workforce. In 2008<\/a>, 88.5 percent of sole-parent households were headed by a female. Women earn less but are over eight times more likely to take responsibility in a single-parent situation.<\/p>\n

The lack of earning potential during the prime working years impacts on the ability to establish long-term financial stability and secure housing.\u00a0 Fifty percent of women<\/a>\u00a0aged 45 to 59 have $8,000 or less in their superannuation funds compared to $31,000 for men.\u00a0 Given equal incomes, women are more likely<\/a>\u00a0to purchase a home than men but more females at lower pay and lower workforce participation mean women are less likely to enter the housing market.\u00a0 Similar to education, the greater propensity for females to secure housing can be seen as a need to establish a security that men may not feel necessary.<\/p>\n

The data points to the fact that women have to be more resilient and work harder to achieve equality in leadership and subsequent pay levels. It is not surprising then that women CEO\u2019s are more likely<\/a>\u00a0to have experienced childhood upheaval to engrain that resiliency.\u00a0 Their male counterparts by comparison often come from backgrounds of a nurturing family unit with a stay-at-home mom and were usually captains for their football teams.<\/p>\n

Policy and media: It hasn\u2019t been that long but it will likely take a lot longer<\/h2>\n

I suppose I could forgive the discrepancy based on the relative recency of Australian gender equality policies.\u00a0 Notable events include:<\/p>\n