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.

The post Women’s financial progress weakens again amid cost-of-living pressures appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Bianca Hartge-Hazelman

Despite 2020 being a tough year, the financial progress of Australian women is trending in the right direction, but it will still take a century to achieve equality, as systemic issues hamper improvement in the unpaid work gender gap.

The Financy Women’s Index fell by 2.3 points (-3%) to 74 points in the December quarter, reflecting the worst performing quarter since March 2013, as women experienced a slower employment recovery than men.

The timeframe for achieving equality increased to 101 years, from a revised 100 years in the September quarter based on the worst performing sub-index (unpaid work) of the Women’s Index.

“At the current rate of progress, economic equality for women is still a long way away,” says Bianca Hartge-Hazelman, author of the Financy Women’s Index. “The Index shows that we are unlikely to see equality in Australia until the year 2122.

“Without significant change, it’s likely that women will continue to participate in paid work at a reduced capacity to men and this will affect women’s financial security and progress,” says Ms Hartge-Hazelman.

The Index also found that women are more likely than men to select educational pathways that are linked to lower paid industries which can have a profound impact on career earnings and gender pay gaps.

“The Index points to a need to reconsider the value of occupations that are traditionally female-dominated such as health, aged and child care,” notes Simone Cheung, Partner at Deloitte Access Economics.

Speaking on the widening of the gender gap in unpaid work, Roger Wilkins, co-author of the HILDA report, said it “seems likely” COVID would have increased the unpaid work disparity in 2020.

“The increase in child care provided at home brought about by closure of child care centres and learning from home is likely to have been disproportionately borne by women,” says Mr Wilkins.

In annual terms, women’s financial progress is headed in the right direction, and finished the year 1.3 points higher for 2020, compared to 72.7 points in December 2019. The Index peaked at 76.3 points in the September quarter.

A stronger year for the appointment of women to ASX200 board positions, up 6 percentage points to 32.6% and the best improvement in the gender pay gap (13.4%) since June 2018, helped drive the Index higher and cushion the December quarter employment growth shortfall.

The Women’s Index also shows it is expected to take 21 years to achieve equality in the national gender pay gap, 33 years in employment, 18 years in underemployment, 7 years for women on boards and 38 years to close the gender gap in superannuation savings.

“To speed up progress, we need cultural change to recognise the benefits of a more gender diverse workplace and greater female participation in it at all levels,” says Dr Shane Oliver, Chief Economist AMP Capital.

“This starts in the nation’s schools and runs all the way to board rooms and the nation’s parliaments. The pandemic has shown that the technology – to enable greater workplace diversity through workplace flexibility – is there to help make this happen,” says Mr Oliver.

Key results:

• The Financy Women’s Index has fallen 3% to 74 points in the December quarter as women’s financial progress collapsed on male employment recovery.
• The timeframe to financial gender equality rose to a revised 101 years, due to a widening of unpaid work gender gap and methodology update.
• Setbacks were seen in education, underemployment, employment and unpaid work as gender gaps widened in the December quarter.
• Improvements were seen in ASX 200 gender diversity on boards and narrowing of gender pay gap as men’s average wages declined.
• In annual terms, the Index is still headed in the right direction, up 2.3 points, but COVID-19 impacts and longstanding behaviors are making equality more difficult to achieve.

The post Women face 101 year wait for financial gender equality appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Bianca Hartge-Hazelman

Women’s economic measure finds that Australian women are progressing but it’s a one step forward, two step back march.

The latest Financy Women’s Index powered by Data Digger has revealed that the economic progression of Australian women has suffered a disappointing setback and is yet to fully recover from a drop in workforce participation and female board representation in the first half of 2018.

The lndex recovered by 0.3 percentage points to 111 points in the three months to June, from 110.7 points in March however the June result remains 2 percentage points lower than the revised 113 point score achieved in the December quarter – when the Index hit a record high.

“While it’s pleasing to see that the Financy Women’s Index recovered a bit in the June quarter and remains in a rising trend, its disappointing that it remains down from its December high, not helped by a setback in women in board positions,” said Dr Shane Oliver Chief Economist AMP Capital.

Key findings:

• The Index edged 0.3 percentage points higher to 111 points in the June quarter from March
• The June quarter result continues to lag the December quarter and is down 2 percentage points from 113 points
• The June rebound was helped by board appointments and jobs growth
• Women are still faced with a national gender pay gap of 15.3% and a superannuation savings gap of 30% at retirement age.

“December remains a standout period for economic progress among women thanks to a jump in jobs for women, particularly retail and mining, as well as there being more women represented as a percentage on the boards of the top 20 listed companies by market capitalization,” said Financy Women’s Index Founder Bianca Hartge-Hazelman.

Despite the first half fall in economic progress, the Women’s Index is up 1.4 percentage points this financial year.

The female participation rate is 60.5%, the same as what it was in the December quarter, but up slightly on the 60.4% in the March quarter.

The country’s highest paying sector mining, shed 6,000 female employees, yet added 17,000 male employees in the six months to June, compared to the December quarter.

“Improving the positioning of women in our economy is critical from a social and ethical point of view but its also critical in terms of supporting growth in our economy,” said Dr Shane Oliver.

“Greater female participation in our economy can help soften the impact of the aging population. And perhaps even more importantly a more gender diverse economy will be a more productive economy,” he said.

The number of women represented on top ASX 20 boards increased slightly in the six months to June 2018, but still trails the December quarter.

The Index found that female board members held 30.2% of positions in the top 20 companies in the period to June, a small gain on the 30.1% in the three months to March of this year.

The June result is 1.9 percentage points less than in the December quarter, according to revisions in the Index and the use of calculations contained in the Gender Diversity Progress Report by the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).

“Until we can have objective discussions and debates around the real corporate issues without turning all debates into gender specific matters, we never will make meaningful progress,” said OneVue Managing Director Connie McKeage.

To help better understand women and their economic progress, an Advisory Committee was appointed in June 2018 to review and help grow the Index, which will also undergo further developmental changes and enhancements to ensure the integrity of future reports.

This Committee includes AMP Capital’s Head of Investment Strategy and Chief Economist Shane Oliver, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s Senior Economist Joanne Masters, Deloitte Access Economics Partner Nicki Hutley, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research Professorial Research Fellow Roger Wilkins and Agenda Agency founder Heidi Sundin.

“I’m excited to be involved with the Financy Women’s Index,” said Jo Masters Senior Economist Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. “Measuring the economic progress of women in Australia will hopefully highlight the economic issues that women face and shape the policy debate about how these may be addressed.

The Index also shows that women continue to enrol in tertiary studies at a faster rate than men, and trends suggests that the pace of growth is highest in courses that align with higher paying careers such as information technology (IT) and engineering.

“It’s encouraging to see more women enrolling in tertiary studies than men, and strong growth in female enrolments in courses that align with higher paying careers. However, there continues to be challenges around retaining women in the workforce, with female participation rates continuing to dip in the 30-39 year old bracket,” said Ms Masters.

Women are still faced with a national gender pay gap of 15.3% and a superannuation savings gap of 30% at retirement age.

Philip Kewin, chief Executive of the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) said the latest Financy Women’s Index results indicate that progress towards creating positive and meaningful cultural change in the financial wellbeing of women in Australia is happening slowly.

“It is disappointing to see that, at 26.1 per cent, the financial and insurance services industry has the highest pay disparity of all industries.”

Data provided to the Women’s Index by the country’s biggest super fund AustralianSuper, shows that while the gender gap in super is improving, it’s not happening fast enough.

“Further work is still needed in the areas of equal pay, equality of opportunity and more equal sharing of family responsibilities to close the gap which results in too many women having insufficient savings to fund a comfortable retirement,” said Rose Kerlin Group Executive Membership AustralianSuper.

Dianne Charman chair of AFA Inspire said the fact that many women work part time is having a long term impact on their superannuation.

“The Financy Women’s Index importantly reminds us to work with women to raise awareness about how even a small contribution to superannuation will, over the long term, put women in a better position.”

Read the June 2018 report. 

By Bianca Hartge-Hazelman, Founder

The post Women’s Index shows economic progress in FY18 despite H1 setback appeared first on AdviserVoice.