Financially, it is still a man's world

RETIREMENT: Will the funds be there? Source: Supplied

THE Tasmanian Government has recently made a submission to the Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into economic security for women in retirement.

Although women have increasing workforce participation and financial independence, significant socio-economic disparity still remains between men and women, illustrated by the pay gap between men and women and the gap in superannuation at retirement.

The recent ANZWomen’s Report, Barriers to Achieving Financial Gender Equity, highlights that although female workforce participation has risen by more than 25 per cent over the past three decades, fulltime female workers nationally were paid 18.8 per cent, or $295 a week, less than men.

This difference equates to $15,000 a year or $700,000 over the entire career of a woman. Sadly, as the report points out, women in Australia continue to earn lower wages simply because of their gender.

Last year’s Graduate Careers Australia report An analysis of the gender wage gap in the Australian labour market found that males’ starting salaries were 9.4 per cent higher than female starting salaries.

Even when the field of education, enrolment and occupational characteristics of graduates were controlled, males’ starting salaries overall were still 4.4 per cent higher than those for females.

The gender wage gap also cannot be explained by way of education attainment. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency recently found that of all women aged 20 to 24 years old 89.5 per cent had attained Year 12 qualifications or above, compared to 83.4 per cent of men in the same age bracket. Of all women aged 25 to 29 years old, 42 per cent had achieved a bachelor degree or above, compared to 30.6 per cent of men in the same age bracket.

The agency also found that the gender pay gap widens considerably for women in management roles, with the gender pay gap at key management personnel level 28.9 per cent and at executive/general manager level 27.5 per cent. This shows that women are not accessing the same earning opportunities as men in leadership positions and the gender wage gap is most prominent in senior leadership positions.

Women are also under-represented in leadership positions. Recently, the Tasmanian Government released the Women on Boards Strategy 2015-20; a five-year plan for improving gender equity on Tasmanian Government boards and committees, because women represent just 33.8 per cent of members on Tasmanian Government boards and committees.

The Tasmanian Government is now committed to a target of 50 per cent representation of women across government boards and committees by July 2020.

Last year, the Tasmanian Government released the very first Women and Girls in Tasmania Report, a biennial report profiling the status of women and girls in Tasmania. The report found that there are substantially higher rates of women in Tasmania who have never had a superannuation account (29.7 per cent) than men (18.7 per cent). There is also a high percentage of women with low value superannuation accounts (balances between $1 and $9999). Of those categorised in the lowest account balance level, 61.3 per cent are women and 38.7 per cent are men. Women are also over represented in the second lowest balance category ($10,000 to $24,999) in superannuation funds.

Men are more likely to have high superannuation accounts, with 65.1 per cent ranked in the $50,000 to $99,999 category and 64.3 per cent in the $100,000 or more category.

The most serious consequence of all this is the likelihood of poverty for women in retirement. The ANZ Women’s Report found that 90 per cent of women will retire with inadequate superannuation savings.

Single women are most likely to be reliant on the full age pension as their sole source of income and are at greatest risk of persistent poverty.

Women on average are living longer than men, so women who do have a superannuation lump sum balance at retirement are required to spread this over more years than men.

Former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick has suggested a number of policy reforms to redress women’s disadvantage in the retirement income system. However, the crux is to close the gender pay gap.

Measures include providing more flexible work arrangements and support to employees to obtain a balance of paid work and caring responsibilities across the life cycle.

Supporting working parents by providing flexible, accessible and affordable childcare plus other care services can help in assisting employees to increase their workforce participation along with shared caring leave, particularly after the birth of a child. Such measures will assist in closing the gender pay gap and provide a more equitable economic security upon retirement.

Under the Tasmanian Government’s Workplace Diversity Plan, the Department of Premier and Cabinet’s State Service Management Office is also working to identify barriers to targeted employment participation, including women in the senior levels of the state public service.

The Government has also partnered with the University of Tasmania in a project to produce a series of fact sheets with an emphasis on the gender wage gap which will be distributed to female students to highlight the importance of subject choice and to empower women to negotiate for better pay as they enter the workforce so that in the future, there will be greater economic security for women in retirement.

Jacquie Petrusma MP is the Minister for Women.

Financially, it is still a man"s world