INTRODUCTION
It has been the practice since 1984 for Federal Governments to produce a Women’s Budget Statement as one element of the official Budget Papers. In 2014 this practice ceased. There has been no explanation from the Government. It is regrettable that the Government has made this decision.
In 2014 the National Foundation for Australian Women, a non-‐politically aligned feminist organisation, in conjunction with experts from a range of women’s organisations, took up the task of analysing the implications of the Budget through a gender lens Budget 2014 Gender Lens. That document proved useful to a number of organisations and analysts, and so this year, in the continuing absence of a Government Women’s Budget Statement, we have prepared a Gender Lens for the 2015-‐16 Budget.
Why a Gender Lens?
NFAW, with other women’s organisations, is committed to examining the potentially differential impacts of policies and their outcomes for men and for women, and whether the consequences of policies, intended or unintended, may adversely impact on women.
The gap between the earnings of men and women is 18.8 per cent and is continuing to widen. Women take time out of the work force for child bearing, child rearing, and for care responsibilities for extended family members to a much greater extent than do men. As a consequence, women have lower rates of savings for retirement, and most women will eventually become wholly or partially dependant on the Age Pension. Women are also underrepresented in the well-‐paying occupations and over represented in the feminised industries that are low paid. Their career progression and therefore representation in the senior executive levels is often interrupted by the periods of unpaid care work and consequently women continue to be underrepresented on boards and other senior positions in the workforce. Many older women have not had an extensive history of work-‐force attachment, and are unlikely to be good prospects for working until age 70. Housing security is markedly worse for mature women than for men. Women have different experiences of poor health conditions than men. Women in Australia are much more likely than men to experience violence at the hands of a partner.
Gender analysis is essential.
This document has been prepared by a volunteer team of analysts. It has been not possible to cover all areas extensively including women with disability and CALD women. Most particularly we regret our inability to analyse the implications for indigenous women and children specifically, given the merging of many pre-‐existing programs into new groups in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. However, we can legitimately assume that any measure adversely affecting the income, housing, health care access or education of low income families will be much worse for indigenous women and children.
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