Women have never been more essential to Australia. They keep our hospitals running and our children home-schooled. So how is it possible that their value in our twisted modern labour market has left them even further behind during the pandemic?
We already know women have borne the brunt of job losses as a result of COVID-19. Now the ones who have kept their jobs are facing another insult: despite years of progress in the fight for equality at work, the gender pay gap is getting worse.
Double workload
Women have earned on average $261.50 a week less than men, a widening of the gender pay gap by almost 1% over the past six months. And that is despite women being over-represented in the front line against the virus, as nurses, teachers, aged-care and childcare workers. They are also twice as likely as men to do more than 20 hours a week of unpaid housework.
Female-dominated industries have been the hardest hit by the economic fallout from COVID, but economic stimulus packages have focused heavily on male-dominated industries such as mining and construction.
And a far larger proportion of household duties and home-schooling during the pandemic has fallen to women. University of Sydney research during the Sydney lockdown in July found women reported doing an average of 61% of household tasks, including home-schooling, while their partners did 39%. It’s a pattern that has been replicated across the world, from New York to London.
“Australia already has a very gendered division of labour by international standards,” Grattan Institute CEO Danielle Wood said. “That gap is bigger than in most OECD countries and has been exacerbated during lockdown.
“There is a big rise in unpaid work as people try to juggle home-schooling. Some families are really at the point where they are making decisions that will have long-term consequences.”
Wood says women are more likely to cut their hours, take a step back in their careers, or leave the workforce due to the pressures both at work and at home.
“I’m worried that this second set of lockdowns will compound the likelihood of women making those permanent decisions,” she said.
Domestic violence risk
Our Watch CEO Patty Kinnersly says another concern about a dramatically increased gender pay gap is that economic inequality is one of the biggest drivers of domestic violence.
Data shows there has already been an increase in domestic violence during the pandemic.
“We know that there is clear evidence that pay inequality is at the heart of domestic violence,” she said. “In order to prevent violence against women we actually have to make sure we have gender equality across all areas of society.”
What can be done?
Current government and workplace initiatives are simply not working and there’s no doubt more money can be invested into women-dominated industries as part of the recovery effort.
Wood is also calling for the reopening of childcare and schools to be a priority as cities and states open up, not just for the health and well-being of children but also for women.
“The longer lockdowns go on, the more we’re going to see a step backwards in equality,” she said. “Employers need to recognise the importance of flexibility — and not just platitudes.
“The risk is they are not going to have some of their workers on the other side of this.”
Abbott
Australia: In Australia legislation for workforce gender equality was first introduced in 1986 by the Hawke Labor government.
Rodent Howard changes in 1999 reduced reporting requirements, made more of the data confidential, and allowed organisations that complied to report every two years rather than annually.
The Gillard government’s 2012 changes introduced comprehensive reporting standards.
Abbott removed many of these changes.
Australian women effectively work the first two months of every year for free compared to their male colleagues.
That pay inequity drives the huge gap in women’s super.
And it’s one of the reasons why older, single women are one of the fastest growing groups of people falling into homelessness.
As Justice Mary Gaudron famously said in 1979: “Equal pay was ‘won’ in 1969 and again in 1972 and 1974. Yet we still do not have it.”
Justice Gaudron could just as easily say that today – forty years later.
Morrison claimed that the Coalition had closed the gap markedly, he lied, anyone surprised.
After five years in power, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government still hasn’t released its long promised women’s economic security statement.
In that time, they’ve tried five times to slash paid parental leave, opposed increases to the minimum wage that disproportionately benefit women and supported cuts to penalty rates.
Hasn’t equal pay for equal work been achieved? If two people work side by side, one a woman and one a man, if they have equal duties to accomplish, then surely they will receive exactly the same remuneration for the same hours worked.I know that women are behind men because they are massively overrepresented in lower paid occupations and don’t have continuity of employment like men due to marriage and childbirth, However, to say that women have not received equal pay for equal work is incorrect.Perhaps another term other than EqualPay can be found.
UnequalPoverty?
‘Hasn’t equal pay for equal work been achieved?’
Yes, it has.
Australian female workers were granted equal pay in 1969. It is against the law to pay different rates based on gender, to people doing there same job.
All the rest is ideology…..
There is a law for some that doesn’t apply to others as experience shows
The other issue is that if you ask a bunch of people what they want in life and their careers, you will get different answers from different people. Some place higher importance on family, prestige, education, travel, wealth, work life balance, income security, doing social good, etc. Gender and culture (separately or in combination) are influences of these choices. Look at the makeup of most university economics classes compared to arts classes and various demographic differences are clear. Are we interested in tracking the average salary of economists vs artists?
For every female who pursues a skilled but low paid career (such as nursing or teaching) it results in one more male in the higher paid careers. If so much credence is going to be given to the salary gap across DIFFERENT careers, then I cant help but conclude that we need gender quotas on ALL university and trade courses. That cuts both ways. Each gender will make up exactly 50% of our plumbers and fashion designers whether they like it or not.
To be clear, if two people have the same aptitude and same career priorities then there is no justification for a difference in salary for EXACTLY the same job. But when a group of people are willing to sacrifice some things for higher salary, should we stop them? Should we start measuring the salary gap between parents and the DINKs?
And along similar lines, people place different priorities on the partners they choose. Some prioritize beauty, wealth, companionship, desires to have children etc. People need to start voting with their feet and picking partners that meet their long term needs. Too many are keen on chasing a type of partner that maybe their friends or parents chased and then raging that their partner isn’t interesting in contributing financially or domestically. There are plenty of fish in the sea to choose from.
More nuance & complex thought than can be grasped by most people – slogans are so much simpler.
No, I used to think this too. It would not compute in my brain. There are a number of reasons why women get paid less for actually doing the very same work. Here’s an example of one that comes from sub-conscious (in this case conscious) bias about what women deserve (in many industries pay scales are not formally written down): out of a mans mouth who runs a very large and impressive Arts Festival, when telling me about a senior female staffer who was asking for a raise – as men also do, when they think they”re worth more than you’re being paid, came the words: “she doesn’t need that much money. she has a husband at home earning that much.” WOW! Do you get the socio-cultural bias that’s being enacted daily?
That person is obviously a pig. No arguement there. But a discrete examples of such piggery do not equal dispassionate, independently collected evidence. The gender pay gap has so many flaws.
When we recruit staff we trade off things like addtional training opportunities, time to study… for salary, as a part of the overall package. Often we are limited by what salary we can offer and hence have to get creative to find things that potential employees will trade off.
Two people doing the same job, with the same aptitude with the same tradeoffs should be paid the same.
My sister worked in private enterprise and experienced a mark difference in pay between herself and male counterparts and frequently she had a higher case load than they did. Objections to those in management above led nowhere.
Without knowing the full story, it sounds like she was being discriminated against….but society needs more than anecdotal evidence, more than flawed gender salary gap statistics before implementing the sort of drastic policies being proposed.
‘Our Watch CEO Patty Kinnersly says another concern about a dramatically increased gender pay gap is that economic inequality is one of the biggest drivers of domestic violence.
Data shows there has already been an increase in domestic violence during the pandemic’.
Georgia, the above is a massive statement. Feminists would argue that issues of power and control are the dominant driver of domestic violence (DV). If you were a university student my immediate reaction to your statement would be ‘References to support this position!!!’
Yes there has been a spike in DV since COVID19 appeared on the scene, but is this due to couples being forced to spend more time together within the confines of the home or pay inequality? I know where my money would be.
If you talk to police and DV support groups DV also spikes on week-ends and public holidays like the Christmas – New Year period when couples also are more likely to be together. Pay inequality I would argue becomes a key factor in two ways with DV.
First, because some women are trapped in low paid insecure work they are often economically forced to remain with an abusive partner, especially if there are children who incur expenses like school, clothes, and accommodation among other things involved.
Second, in cases where women are the higher wage earner in the family the bruised ego of the male needs to make up for his inferior economic standing in other ways. So he resorts to violence and threats to enforce his masculine position as head of the house. BUT the big difference between women in these two groups is that the wealthy woman has the means to escape the violence if she has not been psychologically beaten down by her partner. This is effectively a reverse of the above position but still revolves around issues of power and control.
Perhaps a little more, or some/any, thought before engaging in relationships might be in order?
Yep, also perhaps a little less social pressure on women to marry/ find a boyfriend would be helpful.
The urge to have children seems to be biologically inherent but all the rest is social construct, as malleable as dough.
Unfortunately, once baked it becomes brittle.
“Women are working harder than ever but the gender pay gap has widened”
Maybe the clue is right there in the headline. The women get less pay than ever relatively and yet they work harder. What do they expect? Do they imagine they work for benevolent generous employers who will hand over more pay out of the goodness of their hearts and a surfeit of paternal gratitude?
There is no chance this issue will be addressed while women carry on like that. Get organised and stop working until the pay is acceptable. It’s not easy, there will be many set backs, it will take many years, but it’s the only answer.
I dont follow. How will that help them? Their experience will drop the longer they stop, and who is going to pay more for less experience? Do you mean stop unpaid work or mass strikes?
It’s basic economics. Imagine you employ women. You pay them less, and – FFS! – they work harder. So what are you going to do? Paying them even less and get even more work, obvs.
Yes, if they want better conditions they must organise and demand better conditions. If that does not work, strike. There’s nothing else will help them.
And if they do strike, can males step up to do the work? If they do, then the gender equity stats will really get smashed, creating more slogans ‘proving’ gender discrimination is happening.
I think a better option is for women to vote with their feet. If higher salaries are actually their highest priority (as it is for many males) cf other employment benefits then vote with their feet and move to employers who pay them more/equally. Its a tight labour market so now is the time to make demands and potentially move jobs.
In addition to the pay gap, big business brings women into senior positions to clean up and rescue failing organisations eg AMP. When things start humming along, the old blokes will take over again. The ABC program MsRepresented touched on many of the issues but as usual, no strategies to address the situation. The action needed to bring about the change is what we need, no a rehash of what we know. HUGE CHALLENGE.
She criticized the ABC – let the down voting begin!