Bianca Hartge-Hazelman

Key points

• 76.1 points – The Financy Women’s Index (FWX) slipped 0.1 point in the March quarter 2023 amid cost of living pressures and marking yet another setback in progress to gender financial equality.
• 5.8-year wait for equality in Board leadership – Improvement in the March quarter, with women now accounting for 36 per cent of ASX 200 board directors.
• 20-year wait for equality in underemployment – Timeframes increased with fewer Australian women working to their desired potential in March quarter 2023.
• 24-year wait for the gender pay gap to close – Unchanged since December 2022 quarter.
• May Budget welcomed on women but still missed opportunities: superannuation on paid parental leave and time targets on gender equality.

Progress towards financial gender equality has faltered for the second quarter in a row as the gender gap in the underemployment rate widened, the Financy Women’s Index (FWX) for the March quarter 2023 shows.

The FWX fell to 76.1 points in March, down from 76.2 points out of 100 in December as an increasing female underemployment rate, relative to male, took the shine off quarterly improvements in female monthly hours worked and greater gender diversity on ASX 200 Boards.

Bianca Hartge-Hazelman, founder of Financy, says that as interest rates have been climbing, so too has the female underemployment rate.

“The growing underemployment comes despite an all-time high in the number of monthly hours worked by women, helped by growth in female-dominated services industries such as Retail Trade, Education and Training and Other Services,” she says.

“We appear to be seeing a growing desire, or perhaps financial need, among women to work more hours but they are not able to fully achieve their employment requirements.

“Given that the gender gap in underemployment rate has widened in an environment of higher interest rates for the past two quarters, the risk is that this is not an aberration and that this may continue, resulting in higher female unemployment and a greater financial strain on women, particularly those on low incomes or single parent families.

“This would be a blow to the financial progress of Australian women and cement the view that they are the shock absorbers of high cost of living pressures, more than men. This could weigh on the annual pace of progress towards gender equality beyond the next June quarter,” said Hartge-Hazelman.

Will the May Budget help gender financial equality?

Dr Shane Oliver, chief economist AMP Capital, said he would have liked to have seen more in the Federal Budget to improve gender equality in a fundamental way.

“Paying super on paid parental leave or – even better – measures to encourage more women into courses that lead to higher pay, would be considered fundamental,” he said.

Natalie Previtera, Acting CEO, NGS Super noted that while Australia has made some big strides on the journey towards financial equity for women, there is a long way to go.

“Super on paid parental leave, access to affordable childcare, more flexible working arrangements for all genders, a greater emphasis on workplace cultures that supports both parents taking on caring responsibilities as well as greater transparency in wages, are some of the barriers we still need to crack,” said Ms Previtera.

Professor Roger Wilkins, Deputy Director of the HILDA Survey, said: “Overall I think Labor is doing quite a bit and has flagged further measures going forward, such as improving the child support system and working to reduce domestic violence.

“That said, I’m not convinced the announced changes to Parental Leave Payment (and removal of Dad and Partner Pay) are positive for women. I think they will end up (unintentionally) reinforcing the notion that parenting is women’s work. To break the cycle, we probably need parenting benefits that only fathers can access – which superficially seems counterintuitive,” he said.

The outlook for gender equality timeframes in Australia

Progress is slowly happening, with the biggest challenges in those areas affected by persistent gender norms such as Education and Unpaid work.

Chart: Changes in years to financial gender equality

Source: Financy Women’s Index March 2023

Ms Hartge-Hazelman says that Education (and Expected Earnings) has a worrying time frame to equality, of 139 years.

“Why? The fields of study selected by women are less linked to higher potential earnings and the pace of change in this area is extremely slow moving,” she says.

“139 years to achieve timeframe to equality in the education fields women chose is alarming,” said Annick Donat, CEO of Clime Investment Management.

“Many of these qualifications shape the future of human lives for generations such as nursing, teaching, childcare, and yet they hold less financial ‘value’.  How we measure value needs a new perspective,” said Ms Donat.

Looking at the other areas measured by the Index, the median timeframe to equality is represented by the Gender Pay Gap, at 24 years.

This is a slightly worse result than the 22 years in the December 2021 quarter. However, the recent improvement in the gender pay gap to 13.3 per cent from 14.1 per cent in the December quarter provides hope that this should start to come down if that change continues.

Unpaid Work has a time frame to equality of 44 years in 2021, as reported in 2022, down from 59 years in 2020. The improvement is due to men increasing their unpaid work hours, but for women there’s been no change.

The time to equality in Underemployment also worsened in the March quarter as the underlying gender gap widened. It rose to 20 years, up from 18.5 in December 2022.

Superannuation experienced a reduced time frame in the gender gap of median lifetime balance, down to 19 years, from 33 years based on the latest reportable data which captures the 2019 financial year.

Employment improved the time to equality, helped by those improved monthly hours worked by women. Time to equality fell to 27.5 years in March, from 28 years last quarter.

Board Leadership is the best performing area and equality is expected on ASX 200 boards by 2030. The number of women appointed to ASX 200 directorships rose to 36 per cent in the March period compared to 35.5 per cent in December 2022.

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Nicki Huntley

Key Results:

• The Financy Women’s Index (FWX) slipped by 0.1 points to 76.2 points out of 100 in the December quarter 2022.
• The Index finished the 2022 calendar year in negative territory for the first time in a decade.
• Weakness in the jobs market under higher interest rates weighed on women’s financial progress in the December quarter 2022.
• Years to equality in board leadership (6 years), underemployment (18 years), superannuation (19 years), gender pay gap (24 years), employment (28 years), unpaid work (44 years) and education (139 years).

A slowing Australian economy in the December quarter has put the brakes on women’s financial progress in 2022.

The Financy Women’s Index (FWX) headline score slipped by 0.1 points to 76.2 points out of 100 in the December quarter, to finish 2022, just shy of 76.3 points in December 2021.

Recent weakness in the jobs market under higher interest rates appears to have weighed on the FWX during the December quarter and in particular set back progress in closing the gender gaps in employment and underemployment.

The annual FWX score for the 2022 calendar year also fell -0.1 points, marking the first time in a decade that women’s financial progress finished a calendar year in negative territory.

“While the decline is marginal, even the smallest backward step on this journey is a large policy failure,” said independent economist Nicki Hutley.

“The fact that women didn’t benefit as much as men during 2022 from the economic stimulus from COVID, is an indictment of those specific policies as well as broader policies aimed at gender equality, said Ms Hutley.

Annick Donat, CEO, Clime Investment Management agreed. “Equity and equality need to be symbiotic if we are serious about the advancement of women. We need equitable financial resources and outcomes to support economic equality for women. One without the other slows progress and diminishes the seriousness of the situation.”

The employment sub-index fell to 71.5 points compared to 71.9 points in the September quarter and 71.7 points in December 2021, as the gender gap in monthly hours worked widened on slower female employment growth (0.3 per cent) compared to that of males (0.9 per cent).

The FWX underemployment sub-index also fell to 67.1 points compared to 69.2 points in September and 70.3 points in December 2021, as male underemployment improved, while female underemployment worsened.

Despite the lack of progress in the jobs market during the December quarter, it’s important to note that 2022 did produce some good news in the long-term divers of gender equality. Notable mentions contained in the Financy Women’s Index full report include unpaid work (up 2.1 points), board leadership (2.4 points), the gender pay gap (0.5 points) and education and expected earnings (up 0.5 points).

“The good news is that progress towards gender financial equality continues to be made in areas like board representation, the gender pay gap and unpaid work,” said AMP Capital chief economist Dr Shane Oliver.

“The pandemic appears to have accelerated behavioural change on the part of men in terms of contributing to family and home related unpaid work, which is critical to freeing up women to pursue career related endeavours.

“The backsliding in the FWX Women’s Index through 2022 is disappointing particularly as it comes after years of a rising trend.

“Hopefully it’s just a temporary setback associated with economic dislocation.

“But it’s a frustrating development as it came in key areas around employment.

“It’s also clear that to achieve financial equality we have a long way to go in terms of study and career choices girls take early in life,” said Dr Oliver.

Timeframes to equality in Australia

The past twelve months has produced some significant reductions in the number of years it will take to achieving gender equality in parts of the index, but it has also seen some notable setbacks.

Source: Financy Women’s Index December quarter 2022

• Gender pay gap – at 24 years, up from 22 years in 2021
• Underemployment – at 18 years, up from 15 years in 2021
• Employment – at 28 years, down 30 years in 2021
• Board leadership – at 6 years, down from 6.5 years in 2021
• Unpaid work – at 44 years (2021 data), down from 59 years (2020)
• Superannuation – at 19 years (FY20 data), from 33 years (FY18)
• Education and expected earnings – at 139 years, relatively steady.

“Whilst we remain hopeful that the Federal Government’s Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023, will be effective at helping to further close lingering gender gaps in companies with over 100 employees, there is still more work to be done to challenge long-standing gender biases that act as barriers to economic gender equality,” said Financy CEO Bianca Hartge-Hazelman.

“Financy will launch a new software in May, called the Impacter, which will help small, medium and large organisations take greater action towards an equality effect by enabling measurement, tracking, actions and accountability on diversity, equity and inclusion,” said Ms Hartge-Hazelman.

At the same time Financy would also like to see the following actions considered in the upcoming May Federal Budget to improve financial outcomes for women and help to achieve gender equality in Australia.

1. A gender equality timeframe target as part of the Federal Government’s pledge to develop a National Strategy to Achieve Gender Equality. FWX Target area: Gender equality timeframes.

2. Superannuation payments to be included as part of Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave and unpaid leave portions. FWX Target area: Superannuation & employment.

3. Investment in schools and university-led programs that educate students on the financial implications of gender stereotypes, and to ensure that women, have more choices that stereotypes often suggest. FWX Target area: Employment, education and gender pay gap.

4. Ongoing investment in media campaigns that seek to educate people on the benefits of breaking down gender stereotypes in unpaid work. FWX Target area: Unpaid work.

6. Mandatory gender-balanced targets of 40 per cent minimum for female board directors across all listed companies by 2030 or within 2 years of list date. Plus, government incentivised programs that build the actual number of board ready women in Australia. FWX Target area: Board leadership and gender pay gap.
7. Government introduction of a procurement target on businesses to engage with genuine and authenticated female owned and led businesses. FWX Target area: Employment.

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Bianca Hartge-Hazelman

Key Results

• 73.3 points – The FWX rose 0.4 points in the Sept qtr, signalling gender equality progress helped by narrowing of the gender gaps in education, underemployment and board leadership.
• 139 years to gender equality in education. Now the worst performing area.
• 59 years wait for equality in unpaid work. Second worst performing area.
• 26 year wait for equality in employment and 17-years in underemployment. More Australian women are working to their desired potential.
• 6.1 year wait for equality in board leadership. Women account for 35 per cent of ASX 200 board directors.
• 23 year wait for equality in gender pay gap. This is the median timeframe to gender equality across all seven FWX areas.

The Financy Women’s Index (FWX) for the 2022 September quarter shows women’s financial progress is back on track despite being rocked by Covid disruptions; however the time frames to achieving economic gender equality remain daunting.

The FWX measures women’s financial progress with a higher score indicating advancement. The Index also measures time frames to economic gender equality and covers seven critical areas which include education (also described as education and expected earnings), employment, underemployment, the gender pay gap, unpaid work, board leadership (ASX 200) and superannuation.

The FWX in the September quarter increased to 73.3 points out of 100, up 0.4 points from 72.9 in June.

The gain was helped by gender gap improvements in underemployment (up 1.9 points), board leadership (up 0.8 points) and education (up 0.5 points).

At the current pace of annual progress, it will take 23 years to achieve gender financial equality (based on the median of all sub-index time-frames).

Author of the FWX, Bianca Hartge-Hazelman says: “There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that Australian women fully recover financially from the pandemic and aren’t economically penalised for the choices they make in areas such as education and employment.

“While it is encouraging that the FWX is tracking stronger in 2022, up 0.2 points, it is still concerning that, in annual terms, the FWX remains 1.6 points lower than the record 75-points achieved in September 2021 and September 2020,” says Hartge-Hazelman.

The FWX report for the September quarter includes noteworthy progress for women in the sub-index area of education and expected earnings.

The FWX education sub-index rose to 93.02 points out of 100 in the quarter, up 0.45 points from June’s 92.57 point reading. This was helped by more women switching to fields of study (information technology up 68 per cent) that have higher expected earnings outcomes relative to men.

Chart 1: Timeframes to Economic Gender Equality

Despite the improvement in education, the area remains the worst performing relative to the time frame to equality, which stands at 139 years, says Dr Lili Sussman, chief strategy officer of non-bank lender Wisr.

“We will not see the gender equality gap closed until we challenge existing norms, processes and institutions,” says Dr Sussman.

Unpaid work has the second worst time frame to gender equality at 59 years, compared to 76 years in 2020.

The FWX area with the smallest time frame to gender equality is board leadership which improved to 6.1 years in the September quarter from 6.2 in June. The result has been driven by slow but steady gains in the number of females holding ASX 200 board director positions.

Superannuation has a 19-year estimated time frame to gender equality, which is an improvement on the 33 years reported at the start of this year.

“Despite the numbers improving, here we are in 2022 having the same discussions,” says Annick Donat chief executive officer at Clime Investment Management.

“This leads me to believe there’s still a wide gap between knowing and understanding or acceptance,” says Donat.

“Financy is hopeful that the Federal Government’s commitment to achieve gender equality and support women’s workforce participation will help reduce concerning time frames to economic gender equality in Australia,” say Hartge-Hazelman

Financy has stated that the following actions need to take place to accelerate financial outcomes for women and help to achieve gender equality in the near term.

1. A time frame target needs to be set as part of the Federal Government’s pledge to develop a national strategy to achieve gender equality. This time frame target would parallel the climate change approach by reducing a distant target to meaningful interim goals. FWX target area: gender equality time frames.
2. Superannuation payments to be included as part of Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave changes. FWX target area: superannuation.
3. Investment in schools and university-led programs that educate students on the financial implications of gender stereotypes, to ensure that women in particular, are able to make fully informed choices. FWX target area: employment, education and gender pay gap.
4. Ongoing investment in media campaigns that seek to educate society on the benefits of diversity in the home and breaking down the gender stereotypes around unpaid work. FWX target area: unpaid work.
5. Mandatory gender-balanced targets of 40 per cent minimum for female board directors across all listed companies by 2030 or within 2 years of list date. FWX target area: board leadership and gender pay gap.
6. Government incentives for organisations that have a target of 5 per cent procurement spend with genuine and authenticated female owned and led businesses. FWX target area: employment.

“The latest FWX index highlights that we are making progress to gender equality from an economic perspective in Australia but we have a long way to go,” says Dr Shane Oliver head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP.

“Some areas like women on boards have made great strides thanks to a proactive approach and it’s amazing that corporate Australia is leading the way here with benefits for all Australians.

“Others where we are more reliant on attitudinal change – such as in unpaid work and the education men and women undertake – are lagging badly behind and at the current rate will take lifetimes to correct,” says Dr Oliver.

Read the report.

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These heavy-hitters will judge applications to present at the Melbourne Showcase on April 14th, choosing the 30 most impressive innovations to be demonstrated live at the Showcase.

The committee members are:

• Howard Treisman – CTO, Avoka
• Annick Donat – BT Financial Group
  
• Johanna Pitman – Deputy CEO, Committee for Sydney
  
• Ben Heap – Founding Partner, H2 Ventures
  
• Claire Wivell-Plater – Managing Director, The Fold Legal
  
• Warrick Lace – Director, NWR Communications

The selected presenters will be revealed on March 7th. Stay tuned!

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Johanna Pitman

Afiniation (The FinTech Network) is pleased to announce that it has partnered with the Financial Services Knowledge Hub, the NSW Government initiative coordinated by the Committee for Sydney, to drive collaboration across the financial services sector.

“The Financial Services Knowledge Hub and Afiniation share the goal of supporting the growth of Fintech through improving networks and bringing all voices from across the financial services sector together.” Said Johanna Pitman, Deputy CEO of the Committee for Sydney, “Our partnership is therefore a natural fit and we are delighted to be working together with the Hon. Warwick Smith AM, who chairs the board that oversees the collaborative projects of the Financial Services Knowledge Hub.”

In recognition of the new alliance, the coordinator of the Financial Services Knowledge Hub, Johanna Pitman, will join the selection committee of Afiniation, which will elect the 30 presenters at the next Showcase in Melbourne. The committee also includes Howard Treisman (Avoka), Claire Wivell Plater (The Fold Legal), Ben Heap (H2 Ventures), Warrick Lace (NWR Communications) and Annick Donat (BT).

“To build on the partnership, Afiniation is also working with the Financial Services Knowledge Hub to co-host a problem solving workshop for corporates and startups in June,” said Jillian Upton, co-founder of Afiniation.

As part of its Showcase series, Afiniation successfully held an event in Sydney in September, the first in a series that will include Melbourne in April and other capital cities before returning to Sydney.

The Showcase series aims to facilitate engagement between Fintech entrepreneurs and corporations, essentially finding a solution to the challenge of how large businesses discover new solutions and embrace technology that will hopefully change the face of the economy.

“Our Showcase events are about meeting entrepreneurs that not only have innovative ideas, but also tangible products and services that enable their innovations to literally change the way we do business,” said Upton.

Sydney, as the established ‘centre of gravity’ for Australian FinTech, set a new benchmark with the establishment of Stone & Chalk, a collaboration between entrepreneurs, VC’s, corporates and government and it’s a model that’s being adopted across the country. The inclusion of a member of the Financial Services Knowledge Hub on the Afiniation Select Committee enhances a partnership of like-minded organisations and will undoubtedly lead the way to many exciting new partnerships in the Fintech sector.

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Annick Donat

BT Group Licensees (BTGL) – made up of Securitor, BT Select and Licensee Select – has launched a new, flexible and digital Learning Channel for advisers, representing the future direction of adviser education.

The development of the Learning Channel reflects BTGL’s desire to deliver advisers quality and inspiring education programs in a timely manner that helps drive a culture and community of learning.
According to Mr Phil Butterworth, General Manger of Group Licensees, BT Financial Group (BTFG), this is another great innovation by BTFG for the advice industry.

“We want to set and challenge what is possible in the advice industry and this means being innovative in areas such as education and learning which are key platforms in the professionalism of our advisers and of our industry.”

BT Group Licensee’s Head of Licensee Development, Ms Annick Donat is the key architect behind the BTGL Learning Channel.

“This new learning framework enables our advisers and broader support teams to access this tool in their own time versus the advice industry dictating a time,” she says. “It’s a real breakthrough for adviser education and professionalism.”

The BTGL Learning Channel will digitise Professional Development days, tailor adviser education programs to their experience levels and increase adviser education while ensuring productivity and managing cost. The aim is to make access to quality learning simple, accessible and relevant.

The learning framework includes practice management, compliance, technical, insurance and investments and celebrity lessons designed to inspire action. There are currently ten key learning topics and more than 35 educational and leadership videos on the site.

“Advisers must not only meet educational standards but maintain them as well,” says Butterworth. “The BTGL Learning Channel satisfies this need in a state of the art, digital, and learner-led way.”

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