We’ve Come a Long Way…
Maybe: Choices and challenges facing 21st century women
Speech by Federal Sex Discrimination
Commissioner Pru Goward at the Victorian Independent Education Union (VIEU)
Women’s Conference, 13 June 2003.
- Tony Keenan, VIEU secretary,
Deb James, VIEU deputy secretary, union members, ladies and gentlemen thank
you for inviting me here today.
- It is with great pleasure
that I address the Victorian Independent Education Union (VIEU) Women’s
Conference.
- The story of women in
most professions is the story of women making inroads into male dominated
areas.
- Women in education tell
quite a different story.
- Along with nursing,
teaching – in particular, early childhood education - has always been
defined as an essentially female occupation.
- It began in the 19th
century when teaching and governessing were regarded as more ‘desirable’
forms of employment for to single women.
- By 1901 the number
of female teachers in Queensland schools outnumbered male teachers.
- And in other states,
men and women were employed in almost equal numbers.
- Despite this, women
were consistently paid less than men and occupied less senior positions.
- But that was over 100
years ago.
- That was in the early
years of the 20th century.
- Today we are here to
discuss the choices and challenges of women in teaching in the 21st century.
- The picture however
is not vastly different from that of 100 years ago.
- In 2003 female teachers
outnumber males across all states, in both government and non government schools.
- Looking specifically
at non government schools we find that in Catholic schools 73 per cent of
teachers are women and 27 per cent are men.
- In other non government
schools women make up 65 per cent of teachers and men make up 35 per cent.
- Of the VIEU’s
12,000 members, 70 per cent are women.
- It is fair to conclude
that education continues to be a female dominated profession.
- Unfortunately today
we can also continue to conclude that there exists in the education sector
a gender pay gap.
- When the average weekly
earnings, including overtime for full time adults are compared, men in education
earn on average $936.60 a week, while women in education earn on average $836.70
a week.
- This means women in
education are earning 89 cents in the male dollar.
- When all average weekly
ordinary full time earnings are compared women earn only 84 cents in the male
dollar.
- While it looks then
like women in education are doing well comparatively, let us not forget that
we are talking about a profession dominated by women - there are more female
teachers and educators yet they continue to earn less than the small proportion
of men with whom they work!
- By sheer weight of numbers,
if there is to be a pay gap at all, it should be skewed towards women.
- One of the reasons why
men are able to earn more than women in this traditionally female profession
is because like 100 years ago, men continue to hold senior and therefore better
paid positions in schools.
- Look at the statistics.
- While girls’
schools tend to have female principals, across Independent schools, 66 per
cent of all principals are male.
- There is only one female
principal of a boy’s school.
- In Victorian Catholic
schools 52 per cent of principals are male and 48 per cent are female.
- In Catholic secondary
schools, 68 per cent of principals are male and 32 per cent are female.
- There are no female
principals of Catholic boys’ schools – however four Catholic girls’
schools have male principals.
- Why does this leadership
inequity continue to exist?
- Surely in a female
dominated profession women we should see everywhere – this means at
the top too.
- And this isn’t
a matter of ‘compassion’, this is a matter of merit! This is a
matter of how productive, efficient and competitive we want our private schools
to be.
- It exists for the same
reasons the pay gap continues to exist in the education sector.
- It exists because despite
working in a female dominated profession, women in teaching face the same
challenges faced by the majority of women in the workforce today - the challenges
associated with being responsible for bearing children.
- And as these statistics
show, for women in paid work this challenge translates into experiences of
inequity – less pay, less access to positions of seniority and less
income security over a lifetime (a issue I will discuss in more detail later).
- It is the gendered nature
of family responsibilities that form the greatest barrier to equality in the
workforce for women in the 21st century.
- That promotion often
isn’t available to women, because it goes along with the extra hours
– and women often can’t take the more senior position available
in an interstate or regional school for three months because they need to
get home to their kids.
- Currently we lack creativity
in defining leadership and what is required for positions of seniority.
- Higher positions are
directly associated with more time in the office or at the school.
- We continue to apply
a model that rewards the male life experience – get into an organisation
or a school, put in the time (overtime, months, years) and work your way up
the ladder.
- There is no room for
breaks – necessary for at least even a few days if you are to give birth
to a child; or shorter hours – necessary if you are to at least see
your children.
- These are seen as signs
of ‘lack of commitment’ or ‘lack of ambition.’
- And women who take them
pay the price – literally.
- Leaving the workforce
to have a child severely reduces a woman’s lifetime earnings.
- Women with high levels
of education (12 years) forgo $239 000 in life time earnings from having one
child.
- A women with average
education (10 years) forgoes around $201 000 and a woman with a low level
of education (less than 10 years) forgoes $157 000.
- Breaks from the workforce
to bear or raise children also mean that women workers have substantially
poorer retirement incomes than men.
- One estimate is that
an average superannuation balance for men in 2004 – next year- will
be $74 000, while for women it will be $40 000. A bit less than half.
- Projected to 2019 the
figures for men and women were $121 000 and $77 000 respectively.
- This is the experience
of women in education - however it is not a unique experience.
- Women in all professions
face the challenges of being overlooked for promotions and being less likely
to advance to higher positions within the workforce in general.
- Australia's first census
of women in leadership, released earlier this year found that women held only
8.2 per cent of board seats and 8.4 per cent of senior executive positions
in the country's top 150 listed companies.
- Just over half of those
companies have no women in executive positions, and only two of them have
a woman as CEO.
- This situation does
not arise because women are less competent.
- It arises because despite
being as qualified, and achieving as much professionally as their male counterparts,
assumptions continue to be made about women by those around them concerning
their career aspirations.
- And all of this occurs
before most women have even contemplated having a baby!
- Which brings us to
the crux of the challenge experienced by most women in the paid workforce
today – the challenge of combining work and family.
- The statistics leave
us unable to conclude anything other than that the workforce has failed to
accommodate women as they work and mother.
- This needs to change.
- Why?
- With the demographic
squeeze now upon us, with Western countries like ours expecting long term
labour shortages, and unemployment predicted to fall to four per cent from
today’s six per cent by the end of next year, we have no choice even
if we hate women’s rights, but to make sure women can work and have
children.
- In this global scramble
for labour, employees of all kinds will be the most valuable, rare and sought
after commodity.
- Being an employer of
choice or a profession which accommodates the non-work related needs of staff
will no longer be a choice but a necessity.
- If you don’t want
to take my word for this, David Morgan, CEO of Westpac, has said much the
same thing.
- And this mad scramble
for people will not be limited to our shores.
- Shrinking workforces
are an international trend.
- The competition for
employees will be a global.
- People will be in a
better position than ever before to decide who they work for and where they
work.
- Countries where the
general trend is not to support employees in their other needs such as family
responsibilities, will find themselves losing their young, educated and mobile
workforce who will take up jobs in other countries.
- It’s already
happening.
- Last year, despite our
great beaches, fantastic economic growth, great people like you and me and
political stability, Australia lost 40,000 people.
- People who permanently
migrated.
- That is the highest
number ever. Part of the new global workforce.
- It could go higher.
- They went: teachers,
nurses, doctors, scientists, lured by better jobs and conditions elsewhere.
- It was estimated that
in 2002 there were 6,000 and 15,000 Australian and New Zealand teachers in
Britain.
- Although predominately
lured by the higher wages, let us not forget that they are landing up in a
country which offers better social conditions too.
- The UK recently upped
its paid maternity leave from 18 to 26 weeks.
- Canada’s leading
work and family expert, Professor Linda Duxbury, told an Australian forum
recently: “We’re out to get as many of your good people as we
can”. Canada offers a year’s parental leave at full pay, by the
way.
- And Australia is still
yet to introduce any such scheme.
- Along with the US,
Australia is the only OECD county without paid maternity leave.
- A scheme which for
so many reasons is becoming increasingly necessary.
- Under our current system
of paid maternity leave – ad hoc and at the employer’s discretion
most women go without.
- In the independent school
sector only 30 per cent of schools offer some form of paid parental leave;
and only 21.4 per cent offer it to non-primary carers.
- Most prestigious, award
free boys schools do not offer any form of paid parental leave.
- And in schools where
paid parental leave is on offer, the amount provided is often dismal.
- The Catholic Schools
Certified Agreement provides for 6 weeks paid parental leave.
- Even if only one week
is taken before the birth of the child, a mother may be forced to go back
to work with a one month old child.
- I understand that the
VIEU is planning to ask that this be increased to 14 weeks in the next agreement.
- If we are to ensure
that all women have access to paid maternity leave, that all babies are equal,
we cannot leave its provision at the discretion of employers.
- The only way we can
ensure equality is through the provision of a government funded scheme.
- In December last year
I launched my paper entitled A time to Value in which I outlined a proposal
for a national scheme of paid maternity leave.
- I recommended a government
funded benefit of up to the minimum wage for women who had been in paid work
for fourteen weeks, to enable them to stay at home after childbirth.
- The minimum wage was
at the time $431 per week (it is now $448).
- My proposal for a national
scheme of paid maternity leave was a very modest recommendation.
- I proposed that women
who received this benefit would not receive others and some may even choose
not to take the paid leave.
- As I said, the net cost
of the scheme was calculated at $213million a year; this would have to be
the cheapest family support programme in the country.
- It was with much disappointment
then that on budget night last month, we saw the Government pass up the opportunity
to introduce this or any other such paid maternity leave scheme.
- While acknowledging
that the introduction of a scheme of paid maternity leave is only one of the
positive steps we need to make –the workforce a female friendly and
therefore family friendly place – and the Government has also said paid
maternity leave must be part of a suite of work and family measures - it is
both the starting point and centrepiece of facilitating the combining of work
and family.
- This is why I have
focussed on in my first year as Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner.
- How can we convince
employers that they need to have in place flexible work practices allowing
parents to care for their children if they did not even afford women time
off work to give birth to them?
- It is an obvious and
logical path – you have to take baby steps before you can walk.
- Why then paid maternity
leave, with so many benefits at such a modest cost has sparked so much debate
is a mystery to me.
- Perhaps it is because
the discussion around the introduction of a national scheme of paid maternity
leave has become more than just a public debate about a very modest social
policy measure.
- It has become representative
of a huge demographic challenge for Australia.
- Foremost, the challenge
of who will have our children.
- Every year, slightly
fewer women of child-bearing age in Australia, as elsewhere, decide to have
children.
- The current fertility
rate is 1.7. It is continuing to fall.
- Our necessary replacement
rate is 2.1.
- Men as well as women
are choosing not to have children.
- A recent study confirmed
that men are deferring parenthood to an even later age than women –
if they become parents at all - 68 per cent of men aged between 30-34 had
not fathered a child by 30.
- There are a variety
of economic, biological and social changes contributing to this paradigm shift
– the shift to smaller families, later in life, if at all.
- First- education and
training periods are longer, meaning earning capacity begins later in life
for most young men and women.
- A third of people aged
20-24 are still in higher education – unheard of in previous generations.
- Next, having spent those
years and that money on getting an education or other qualifications, young
women are understandably reluctant to trade this all in for ten years at home,
knowing how hard it will be to pick up a job or career again at the end of
it. To say nothing of their desire for independence, for choices, for security
in their retirement years.
- Then, the nature of
work has changed. Few young people enter the workforce with permanent full
time jobs the Bank is going to lend money for a home on.
- Contract and project
work is very common, 45 per cent of Australian workers do not have permanent
jobs, with the consequence that not only do home mortgage lenders feel understandably
uncertain about the young couple’s prospects, but so does the young
couple!
- Most families today
need two incomes to survive. Sure, one parent might only need to work part
time, but work they both do.
- It’s not about
saving up for the overseas family holiday, if indeed it ever was.
- Today the majority of
women will have to work part or full time for at least part of their parenting
years.
- Why? Because the real
cost of living is high. In particular, housing affordability, Australia-wide,
has declined by 17.8 per cent in the past 12 months. You need two incomes
to carry the mortgage on the slum of your dreams, forget the 4 bedroom mansion
with the spa bath and optional pool room!
- The monthly loan repayment
needed to meet a typical first-home mortgage in Sydney reached $2538 - 40.6
per cent of average household income. In Melbourne housing prices rose 20
per cent in the last financial year.
- Risk management is
emerging as another major reason why we now have two income families, even
when the children are less than a year old.
- The risk of divorce,
first of all, and, increasingly significant, the risk of temporary unemployment
for the primary income earner.
- Currently Australia’s
divorce rate is just under 50 per cent over a thirty year period, meaning
that for 50 per cent of families, the second income earner at some stage MUST
become the primary income earner, at least for herself if not herself and
her children.
- In defacto relationships,
the break-up rate, even with children, is even higher.
- Yes, we can work harder
at keeping marriages together, but in the mean time, we need to address the
consequences when divorce does occur.
- Despite Australia’s
outstanding child support system, it remains the case that divorce means poverty
for women who have not worked in the period before separation.
- The high percentage,
say 75 per cent, of single mothers on supporting parents’ pensions in
Australia, is much higher than overseas percentages and suggests we just have
not faced up to this reality nearly well enough.
- This welfare dependence
is compounded in the years that follow and results in their greater dependence
on welfare for the last part of their lives.
- Risk management of
job uncertainty is a further compelling reason for the two income family.
- Where once skilled
workers at least could be confident of continuous employment, downsizing,
restructuring, mergers and the need to be internationally competitive means
that for many, periods of unemployment are to be expected. 42 per cent of
workers today are in a job for less than 2 years.
- Families need to spread
that risk by having two in work, not just one.
- Low wage families have
always needed to do this- now the middle class is in the same boat.
- As history has shown
it takes the middle class to start a revolution – and here we are!
- So we have no choice
but to support families in a meaningful and relevant way because families
have no choice.
- It’s not about
selfishness or personal greed on the part of young men and women.
- It’s about being
able to work and have a family.
- Our task as a community
is to make this choice viable for them.
- Paid maternity leave
alone will not make it possible for women to do both.
- But no one has ever
suggested that any one policy alone can or make it possible for people to
combine work and family.
- Every western country
in the world that’s trying to facilitate the choice of women to have
children has done so by providing a package of work and family measures. NOT
work or family.
- And there is no package
that does not include Paid maternity leave. It is a must-have.
- It means that women
do not have to forego much needed income when they take time out of the workforce
to give birth, recover from birth and bond and care for a child.
- It is a recognition
and a valuing of the dual role women play in the 21st century – they
work and they mother.
- Sometimes they will
focus solely on one of these tasks, usually they will be tackling both together.
- Hence the tyranny of
juggling.
- Family responsibilities
extend well beyond the first three months of a child’s life and take
many, often unexpected forms.
- Employees – and
that is all employees, not just women – must be able to fulfil these
responsibilities.
- And employers must
make it possible for them to be able to combine work and family or they won’t
get the workers.
- Flexibility in working
arrangements is therefore essential.
- Creative ways of allowing
employees to meet their work and family commitments should be encouraged by
employers – not resented.
- A parent, needing to
pick up a child from day care at 3pm, who suggests that he or she take her
lunch break from 3 – 3.30pm rather than 1 – 1.30pm should be seen
as coming up with a solution that will work for both the worker and the employer
– not dismissed.
- At least this is the
opinion of our courts. And it makes sense.
- Child care should be
affordable and easily accessible.
- Part time work should
be an accepted mode of working, not seen as a career limiting move –
it should not have the trade off of promotion and career advancement. And
it should be an option for all employees – not just women.
- Look at Holland.
- Here all employees
have a legislated right to part time work, and legislation prohibits discrimination
against part-time workers.
- It ensures them equal
hourly pay, pro-rated benefits, and equal opportunity for career advancement.
- Part time work is considered
‘good work’ in Holland.
- It is the norm for
women and men; Holland has the highest rate of part-time work among OECD countries
(17 per cent for men and 68 per cent for women) and a very low rate of involuntary
part time work (6 per cent).
- We can make our workforce
more family friendly.
- We can make achieving
the work and family balance a reality.
- It just requires a change
in attitude and practice, by employers, across industries and in society.
- It requires ‘best
practice’ standards to be set.
- This is where the education
sector can play a vital role.
- As a female dominated
profession it should be leading the way. Child care, access to part time work
and paid maternity leave should be the norm in an industry where the majority
of employees are female.
- The sector has chosen
to miss the opportunity to lead, rather it lags.
- What example of leadership
does this set for the children it educates and moulds?
- I consulted a number
of representatives from education unions in writing my paper on paid maternity
leave.
- Time and time again
hearing how access to part time work is almost impossible for teachers, a
reasonable spread of hours difficult to attain and affordable childcare unheard
of.
- It is hardly surprising
then to hear that the VIEU is planning to run a family friendly workplace
campaign in the education sector.
- I congratulate the
union on taking this step.
- All of this is not being
said to black mark the education sector.
- The situation in this
sector mirrors the reality for all women in all professions.
- But the other reality,
the reality which we are increasingly being forced to respond to, is that
today women are a crucial, vital and necessary part of the Australian workforce.
- In 2003 women make
up 45 per cent of the overall labour force. Every year this figure increases
– In 2001 they made up 44 per cent.
- What were once ‘women’s
needs’ are now the needs of nearly half the workforce.
- Employers therefore
face a unique set of challenges. They can no longer ignore these ‘women’s
issues’.
- The rest of society
also faces a challenge, because inevitably the well being of the next generation
is our responsibility.
- And their well being
affects our future wellbeing.
- The nature of the challenges
facing us all is really nothing new.
- It is the challenge
of embracing a changing in social, economic and biological factors.
- We have done this many
times before and we will have to do it again.
- It is the challenge
of evolution, of being human, of living in a rapidly changing world.
- Of course, each time
the set of changes we are excepted to embrace are different.
- Today facilitating
these changes means allowing people to combine work and family.
- As they did before
the Industrial Revolution - William Blake’s dark satanic mills.
- It means making work
and mothering a viable choice for women - but it also means not leaving women
with the entirety of this double shift.
- Giving birth remains
a ‘women only role’ – for now at least, but parenting certainly
is not.
- However most men remain
unaware that there even exists 52 weeks unpaid parental leave entitlements
to them available after the birth of their child.
- They rarely utilise
their employee rights to flexible work practices or other workplace benefits
designed to make caring for a child easier.
- Despite a desire to
be more involved in their child’s life, the reality is that at the time
of the birth of his child a man will take on average, one week of paid paternity
leave, a few weeks annual paid leave and then it’s back to work as usual.
- In this environment
the only indication that he just had a child may be his initial ‘proud
new father beam’ which is fast replaced by ‘bleary eye glow’
as the reality of life with a sporadically sleeping, always hungry, screaming
machine sets in for him and his partner.
- Further down the track
evidence of fatherhood may become further eroded – reduced to an array
of photos on his desk – from baby photos to first day at school snaps.
- With modern technology,
even this cluttering of office space may not be necessary – the photos
can be scanned, updated regularly and stored as a screensaver!
- Looked at this way,
there is a yawning gulf between what men say they want and what they do.
- Having a child barely
registers a ‘blip’ in their working arrangements.
- This isn’t because
men are selfish or insensitive.
- It’s because
that’s the way family economic imperatives work today.
- The greatest amount
of overtime is worked by men in their prime young parenting years.
- They are working harder
to make up for the income lost by mother being at home, unpaid.
- The reality is however
that men are the primary earners in most families. So while there remains
in place a gendered pay gap, families’ choices over caring arrangements
will continue to be undermined.
- They will also continue
to be undermined as long as society sees men who adopt flexible working arrangements
as less ambitious, soft or slack.
- While paid maternity
leave obviously addresses issues directly related to a woman’s child
bearing role, return to work issues are not just about mothers.
- They are about parenting
and how we accommodate this at work.
- As long as they are
seen as options for women and more specifically mothers – women will
remain outside of the normal practices of the workforce. They will be the
problem, not the norm.
- So while it is easy
to see the problems and challenges facing women in the 21st century they cannot
be addressed by women alone.
- Whether this makes
them more challenging or not depends on all of us – it depends on our
ability as a society to change our attitudes and change our practices.
- It’s time Australian
Society stopped talking about what they’d like in a perfect world and
started action on the realities of the world we actually live in.
- Equality, in the end,
in a perfect world – rules – ok?
Last
updated 25 August 2003.
