NFAW calls on the Next Government to Continue Progress for Women

We urge the next Government to be bold and to continue to progress the gender reforms initiated by the 47th Parliament.

NFAW has examined the policy areas that are of most relevance to the economic wellbeing of women, and our analysis shows that the Albanese Government has placed gender reform at the core of its decision making, improving the lives of many women.

The heart of those reforms has been in the machinery of government: ensuring that policy decisions include analysis of the effects on women; revitalising the Women’s Budget; and strengthening the role of WGEA.

The changes to the Fair Work Act and the implementation of Gender Panels; higher wages in the care sector, a highly feminised workforce; the extension of childcare and progressing aged care reforms will all benefit women.

There are still policy areas that need attention. Climate change is real, and women bear the burden of disaster recovery; and women receiving Jobseeker and other welfare payments are living in poverty.

Affordable housing, whether as a homeowner or renter, is a matter of urgency. We urge the incoming Government to accelerate programs that have been commenced – not change course.

We are facing geo-political uncertainty. The incoming government could see this as a sign to apply the brakes on programs that address inequality.

We call on the incoming government to be bold and continue to invest in programs that reduce gender and intergenerational inequality.

Professor Helen Hodgson Chair Social Policy Committee	Marie Coleman AO PSM Advisor to Social Policy Committee

The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) will be playing a vocal role in bringing to your attention KEY issues around critical policies for women that need to be addressed and part of the dialogue in the lead up to the 2022 Federal Election. Over the next few weeks, NFAW will be taking a deep dive on key policy issues to bring forward the real conversations that need to be aired in the media to keep current and future governments on topic, and on task with the needs of all women in Australia. This platform builds on a track record of NFAW delivering a comprehensive Gender Lens on the Budget since 2014 when the Abbott Government discontinued the practice of issuing a Women’s Budget Statement.

A panel of highly regarded economists and social policy academics and practitioners, led by Professor Helen Hodgson, formed a Gender Lens panel in January 2022 to bring you insights and critical thinking regarding the policies associated with the Gender Lens to be discussed in the media, including thoughtful and thought- provoking questions you all need to be asking politicians around policies that they will implement. We hope that this will help to inform discussion in this pre-election phase.

Jane Madden
NFAW President

Gender Lens 2022  Women’s Economic Security: Gender Responsive Budgeting

In Australia, as elsewhere, the outbreak of Covid-19 has exposed and deepened pre-existing inequalities. These include gender inequalities and ways women experience inequality, including on the basis of unpaid care roles, race, disability, age, sexuality, regional location or national origin. The same inequalities are being exposed by climate change. Our annual Gender Lens on the Budget analysis has exposed how flood, drought and fire have brought greater health risks to women, increased their exposure to violence and left them more likely to lose or forgo employment opportunities because of additional community and care responsibilities.

We have seen women as primary carers and home schoolers, forced to cut working hours or withdraw from the labour force; women as exposed and underpaid deliverers of health, aged, child and disability care services; women as insecure casualised workers who are ineligible for sick leave and for covid support; women as exposed multiple job holders moving between care sites; women as victims of violence trapped at home; growing numbers of women without basic income forced into homelessness.

Put it another way: the stresses of covid have exposed the fact that the national social infrastructure is failing – failing those who receive care and those who deliver caring services and failing those pushed into social welfare by chronic job insecurity, skewed tax and superannuation policies, and domestic and family violence.

Marketisation has failed to deliver an adequate care infrastructure, and it has distorted the design, funding, delivery and adequacy of our social welfare services. Driven by a tax system that gives tax preferences to investment earnings over earned income, it has caused services to be configured to suit for-profit providers to reduce government outlays, and to capitalise on family responsibilities of primary carers. Women work where these embedded drivers meet, in insecure and undervalued jobs in the underfunded and often understaffed workplaces where Australians receive care.  Demands on failing social infrastructure will only continue to intensify with the ageing of the population and the growing costs and impacts of climate change. Resources for social infrastructure will continue to contract with a tax system targeting earned rather than unearned income.

The 2020 budget is still notorious for having ignored social infrastructure and pouring resources into construction – and then excluding desperately needed social housing.  The 2021 budget, which was supposed to deliver for women, stumped up only 0.14% of annual outlays over 4 years for its plan for women’s economic security.

 

The NFAW Gender Briefing Papers 2022 will call on the Australian Government to rebuild national social infrastructure through more gender-responsive budgeting and reforms.  We look forward to sharing our research and highlighting critical policy issues that need to be aired in the lead-up to the 2022 Federal Election.
                                                

Professor Helen Hodgson
Chair Social Policy Committee 

Marie Coleman AO PSM
Advisor to Social Policy Committee

Key policy actions the gender lens briefing papers will address in 2022 include:

1. Employment reform

One of the measures of a strong economy is a strong social infrastructure. ECEC, disability care and aged care services are far from strong: these systems are failing those receiving services and those delivering services.  There are not enough services to enable to women to engage with the paid workforce, and terms and conditions of employment are poor, leaving the sector facing substantial and growing staff shortages in the face of growing need. The current iteration of the Fair Work Act offers token and inadequate mechanisms to address insecure and casualised work and discriminatory rates of pay.

Download PDF: MEDIA BRIEFING Employment

 

2. Welfare reform: a Social Compact

The COVID pandemic showed that welfare reform is possible. During the first wave of the pandemic welfare payments were increased, providing security to welfare recipients during lockdowns. However that support has now been withdrawn and replaced with an increase in Jobseeker of $50 per fortnight, or $3.57 per day. Welfare has a gendered aspect with 58% of all Social Security being paid to women. The largest group of people on Jobseeker are women over 50, who are also most likely to be receiving the payment long term. Australia can afford welfare reform to provide dignity to people on welfare.

Download PDF: NFAW media release welfare

 

3.Tax and superannuation reform

It is well recognised that women have lower superannuation balances at retirement than men of a comparable age, and that older women are the fastest growing demographic group of the homeless, largely as a result of women earning less during their working life. What is less well recognised is that the gender pay gap is also reflected in the taxation system. The recent program of tax cuts is biased against women as they are less likely to be in the highest marginal tax rates, where the tax cuts will give the greatest refund; and more likely to be in the lower tax brackets where low- and middle-income tax offsets are used to stave off tax increases. The use of offsets to bridge the gap between tax cuts creates uncertainty as they are legislated on an annual basis. Tax reform is essential to raise the funds that Australia needs to pay for services such as Aged Care, Child Care and welfare reform.

Key writers :
Professor Helen Hodgson (Curtin University)

Dr Leonora Risse (RMIT)

Download PDF: MEDIA BRIEFING Tax

Download PDF: MEDIA BRIEFING Superannuation

 

4.Integrity, Gender and the Just Use of Power

NFAW produces an annual Gender Lens on the Budget as an accountability measure because the government picks only the budget policies it wants to account for. But budgets are not the only way of allocating public resources. Soft corruption such as pork barrelling and the politicisation of the public service also have gender implications. Soft corruption is a mechanism for reinforcing insider power. It is associated with gendered political settings and characterised by gendered decision-making and policy outcomes. New social institutions are required to address it: a full Gender Lens on the Budget in the hands of the independent Parliamentary Budget Office, full resourcing for other economic integrity institutions such as the ANAO and, importantly, an independent, well-resourced and properly empowered Integrity Commission. Gendered settings in government and business need to be addressed through full implementation of the recommendations of the Jenkins Report on the Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplace and those of the more wide-ranging Respect@Work.

Key writers:
Honorary Associate Professor Sally Moyle (ANU)

Dr Kathy MacDermott

Download PDF: Integrity-Gender-and-the-Just-Use-of-Power

 

5. Climate Change And Disaster Management

Climate change also has a gender dimension. Women are more likely than men to suffer the adverse health consequences of extreme climate events, and women are disproportionally affected by climate change disasters. In Australia, disasters increase women’s economic insecurity: women lose or forgo employment opportunities on taking up additional community and care responsibilities, as shown after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, and the 2011 floods in Queensland and Victoria. Disasters also increase rates of gender-based violence, including from the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires, a pattern replicated after the 2020 fires. Failure to take action on climate change and emissions abatement can exacerbate gender inequality and reduce women’s ability to adapt. Women are also more likely to express their concern about global warming, and to support climate change mitigation policies.

Key writers:
Dr Debra Parkinson and Dr Catherine Weiss

Download PDF: NFAW Media Briefing Climate Change

 

 

Key contacts for the NFAW 2022 Gender Lens Briefing Papers for Media

Prof Helen Hodgson: h.hodgson@tpg.com.au

Election 2019 – Young women

WHAT ARE THE PARTICULAR ISSUES FOR YOUNG WOMEN?

There are a wide range of issues that currently affect Australian young women. These include (but are not limited to):

• The casualisation of the workforce, high rates of under-employment, increase in the gig economy and increasing unpaid internships make it difficult for young people to find steady, secure employment with access to paid leave and superannuation.1 The youth unemployment rate is currently 12.6% overall and 12.3% for young women aged 15-24, compared to an unemployment rate of 5.1% for the total population.2

• A higher proportion of males than females reported feeling confident or very confident in their ability to achieve their study/work goals after finishing school in a recent study by Mission Australia.3

• Despite high rates of participation in post-secondary education, young women continue to experience inequity in pay. For example, the gender pay gap is apparent even at graduation - the average gap for recent graduates is 9.4% favouring men; the gender pay gap for some study areas is substantially higher.4

• In Australia, women aged 18 to 24 are at the highest risk of experiencing sexual violence compared to women in older age groups and men. Data from the 2016 Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey found that approximately 1 in 20 women in this age group reported experiencing sexual assault in the last 12 months.5 Research has shown that 24% of young women aged 18-24 have had a nude or sexual photo/video posted online or sent on without their consent.6

• Young women also have the highest rate of assistance from Specialist Homelessness Services, with domestic, family and sexual violence cited as the main reasons for needing help.7

• One in four young people are at risk of serious mental illness, and the risk is greater in Indigenous groups and young women.8 Twice as many females than males were likely to report high levels of concern over coping with stress and mental health in a recent study by Mission Australia.9

Election 2019 – Women with disabilities

WHAT ARE THE PARTICULAR ISSUES FOR WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES?

Poverty & Economic Security:

• Forty-five percent of people with disabilities live in or near relative povertyi . This is 2.5 times the poverty rate of non-disabled people and double the OECD average (22%).

• Those with mild to moderate core activity restrictions due to their disability are in the 90% of people with disabilities who are not eligible for NDIS support packages. They are increasingly likely to be on Newstart Allowance rather than the Disability Support Pension. At the same time they are still likely to have higher costs of living than non-disabled women.

The Royal Commission:

• Government should commit itself to fully fund and support the Royal Commission into violence, abuse and neglect of people with disabilities, and to take a gendered approach to recognise the impact of gender and disability discrimination on women’s self-confidence and self-esteem, in turn affecting their ability to bring their grievances to the commissioners. The Royal Commission should be allowed to run over full election cycle at a minimum.

National Disability Insurance Scheme:

• Women with disabilities are only 38% of participants in the NDIS. The agency needs to show leadership in employment of people with disabilities, including at all levels achieved by meeting a quota of 51% for employment of people with disabilitiesii (this is not to include people who are the primary carers of people with disabilities). There needs to be a requirement for training of employees in human rights (in particular CRPD and CEDAW), the social model of disability, and the impact of violence abuse and neglect on functioning and activities of daily living (ADLs). Changes must be made to implement functional assessments in planning and review, in order to move away from reliance on diagnoses, so that outcomes are closer to a social model that is rights based.

• Intersectionality also needs to be better acknowledged in assessment and review, as the percentage of people with disabilities with two or more disabilities is high. Estimates of the number of people with cognitive impairment who have a dual disability with a psychiatric disorder varies from 9% to 39%.iiiivv

Housing initiatives:

• There is a need for funding to be made available for a further increase in supply of social and public housing to be matched by states and territories through national housing programs. All housing should be accessible and sustainable in design to minimise heating/cooling costs. All new Class 1A (private) dwellings should have minimum levels of accessibility as outlined in the National Dialogue on Universal Housing Design.vi

Employment:

• People with disabilities are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as the non-disabled (10% versus 5%vii). Women with disabilities face greater discrimination in the open employment market. Despite a greater proportion of women with disabilities (compared to men with disabilities) having 2 post school qualifications, they are half as likely to have full time work as their male counterparts and twice as likely to have part time work.

• The NDIA needs to reinforce and amplify its employment goal-setting to focus on support for people with disabilities to find and keep a job and have the expectation of a career pathway.

Social Welfare: • The current debt recovery process has unfairly impacted on women with disabilities who have to juggle caring responsibility with job-search obligations. Thirty-two percent of women with disabilities have a primary carer role.viii There is a need for review of the social security system to look at the fairness of the definitions in impairment tables for eligibility to the DSP.

Violence against Women:

• Violence against women with disabilities is an urgent and largely unaddressed issue. The National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women needs to cover all settings in which violence experienced by women with disabilities occurs.

Emergency Accommodation (Women’s Refuges):

• Funding agreements for Emergency Accommodation should mandate the building of accommodation that meets the accessibility standards necessary to accommodate women with disabilities escaping domestic violence.

• Violence against women is widespread – 1 in 3 Australian women have experienced physical violence and 1 in 5 have experienced sexual violence.

• An estimated 25% of women have experienced emotional abuse by a partner including financial abuse, isolation from family and friends, continual humiliation, threats against children or being threatened with injury or death.

• By 2021-22, domestic violence and sexual assault perpetrated against women will cost the Australian economy $15.6 billion in that year, if extra steps are not taken.

• The Commonwealth Government led development of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against women and their children 2010-2022, a comprehensive long-term strategic approach aimed at delivering “a significant and sustained reduction in violence against women by 2022”.

• Out of respect for the more than 500 Australian women and their children who have been killed since “The National Plan to Reduce Violence against women and their Children 2010-2022” was approved, and the many thousands of Australian women who have lived in fear over that time, the NFAW recommendations outlined below set a very high bar for policy commitments to make a difference.

• Women are the beneficiaries of a progressive and redistributive taxation system. Taxation data shows that women are underrepresented in the highest income tax brackets and overrepresented in the lowest income tax brackets. Women are also the beneficiaries of increased spending on income support payments and social services. Unsustainable tax cuts hit publicly funded services, with the potential to reduce jobs. Women are over-represented at lower income levels, therefore changes to government benefits and services affect them disproportionally. (ATO (2018) Taxation Statistics 2015-16, Table 3; www.data.gov.au).

• Women who are the second income earner in a family are also particularly at risk of excessively high effective marginal tax rates. The effective marginal tax rate is the sum of any reductions in means tested benefits plus income tax paid on additional earnings. For example, if a parent increases her hours of work she will be liable for income tax, her Family Tax Benefit will be reduced and she will pay more in childcare. This is a disincentive to work and a drag on productivity in the economy. Australia currently has the third highest rates of female part time work in the OECD. (OECD (2018), Part-time employment rate (indicator)).

• Tax offsets for low income earners increase the effective marginal tax rate for taxpayers within the taper zone, which increases work disincentives for women and other low income taxpayers and are not available to women where the tax payable is less than the amount of the rebate. Low income families are better served by receiving the benefit on a regular basis through transfer payments or reduced PAYG payments, particularly in a low wage growth environment.

• The effect of changes in corporate tax rates are mixed. If businesses reinvest in production there may be productivity gains including increased employment, but tax gains may be returned to shareholders as profits. Industries dominated by women, including education and health care are less likely to benefit from corporate tax cuts as they rely on domestic markets. Dr Janine Dixon, Centre for Policy Studies, Victoria University, at the National Press Club 23 May 2018

• Superannuation policy is gender blind, but by treating men and women the same it does not recognise that women’s lived experience of economic security is different to men. Through a gender lens, the Superannuation Guarantee system is fundamentally flawed because it is based on earnings. As long as women experience lower earnings and interrupted work patterns, the superannuation system will result in poorer outcomes for them.

• The average superannuation balance for women aged 60 to 64 is $157,050 which is 58% of the average balance of $270,710 held by men of the same age.

• Women are more likely than men to report having no superannuation: 33% compared to 27% of men. 45% of women aged between 65 and 69 have no superannuation, either because they have never had a superannuation account or because it has been fully drawn.

• Men hold 61.2% of the total pool of superannuation, with women holding 38.8%.

• The superannuation gap emerges early in a woman’s working life, with a superannuation gap of 20% between men and women aged 25 to 29; and continues to increase over a woman’s lifetime.

• The superannuation gap is connected to the gender pay gap, career interruptions, and the casualisation of work.

• Women are more likely to men to be reliant on the Age Pension, and women live longer than men.

• Any changes to structures or funding have serious implications for women’s working conditions and ability to deliver high quality education. Women make up the majority of the workforce in the schooling sector. At the primary level of schooling, females accounted for 81.5% of teaching staff in government schools, 82.6% in Catholic schools, and 77.1% in Independent schools. The proportion of teaching staff who were female was less at the secondary level, where the figures were 60.1% for government schools, 58.9% for Catholic schools, and 55.8% for Independent schools.

• Inadequate and short-term funding also has serious consequences for Australian women and their children in relation to accessing education and other work and family commitments in the longer term. Women are also the major care givers for children and changes to funding models impact on their relationship with schools and their ability to enter the workforce. On average women spend 8 hours 33 minutes per day caring for children under 14 years of age compared to men who care for 3 hours 55 minutes.

• While the broader sphere of sexual and reproductive health affects all genders and sexualities, women carry a disproportionate burden of reproductive health issues.

• Dysmenorrhea, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, pelvic inflammatory disease, uterine fibroids, cervical, ovarian and other gynaecological cancers are health concerns unique to women. All of these conditions are often under-diagnosed or diagnosed late, leading to long periods of untreated pain and lost opportunities to prevent the worsening of symptoms or progression of disease.

• On average, women are fertile for over 40 years, which represents around 480 occasions where pregnancy is possible.

• For teenagers and young women, comprehensive sexual, reproductive and respectful relationships education, access to affordable sanitary products and youth and women-friendly health care providers are needed.

• For sexually active women, access to safe, affordable, effective contraception, suitable to their individual needs, is essential. Currently, it is estimated that around half of all pregnancies are unplanned. o Anecdotally, women report significant barriers to accessing emergency contraception, specifically judgmental attitudes by pharmacists.

• While accurate data on induced abortion is notoriously difficult to obtain, it is estimated that around a third to a quarter of women will have an abortion at some point in their reproductive lives. Services need to be modern, supportive and non-judgmental, within an appropriate legal framework and adequate service planning.

• It is well documented that pregnancy termination services are extremely limited and prohibitively expensive in most parts of Australia. Laws governing pregnancy termination are also different in every state and territory.