How Australia is failing its highly educated women

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How Australia is failing its highly educated women

By Jordan Baker

The education of Australian women has come a long way since they were first able to get access to the country’s universities in the 1880s. By the 1970s, one in three students were female and, these days, they make up more than half.

Now, one in two women aged 25 to 34 has a bachelor’s degree, compared with just over one in three men in the same age group. As data revealed by the Herald shows, girls are significantly outperforming boys in school-leaving exams and during uni, too.

Australian women are among the most highly educated in the world.

Australian women are among the most highly educated in the world.Credit:Louise Kennerley

Australian women are among the most educated in the world.

But this begs the question: what’s next? Why is it men still dominate across boardrooms and offices and parliament and, on average, out-earn female graduates by about $750,000 over their lifetime?

The gender pay gap kicks in quickly, says Sydney University associate professor Elizabeth Hill, the deputy director of the Gender Equality in Working Life Research Initiative, due to various factors ranging from baked-in discrimination to lower pay levels in female-dominated sectors.

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The gender pay gap is narrowest for employees younger than 20, and sharply increases for those in their 20s and early 30s, and widens again between 35 and 44. It is widest – almost 18 per cent – for those aged 45 to 54.

Family considerations also begin to influence women’s job decisions early in their career, says Hill.

“Our qualitative research demonstrates that women who have been thinking of having a child will move sideways or down or into another sector into a position where they’re going to get better paid parental leave, or more flexibility,” she says.

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“Once people have children, there’s all the data on cutting back days, cutting back hours, staying in positions that are less well remunerated. Lack of flexibility in good jobs with high levels of responsibility means women don’t go for these.

“It’s such a crazy waste of resources.”

A key economic challenge for Australia – and an issue to feature in next week’s state budget – is finding ways to ensure highly educated women can take jobs commensurate with their skill and aspiration.

Among other things, families need affordable, accessible childcare, incentives for both parents to be involved in the care of children, and an equal division of labour in the home.

“It’s a jigsaw puzzle,” says Hill. “All these different bits fit together to create a policy architecture that allows women and men to participate, care and work in a way that reflects their aspiration and ambitions.”

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Executive director of think tank Per Capita Emma Dawson says Australia is ranked equal first in the world for women’s education in the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Index, and 70th for financial empowerment.

“It’s not our fault, it’s structural,” she says, citing a tax system more generous to single rather than double-income families which creates a disincentive for women to go back to work more than three days a week.

But things are changing. At the federal election, professional female voters were a powerful voice; demographer John Black describes them as the “largest single occupation group”. Professional women, running as teal independents, were elected in once-safe Liberal seats.

Women are now dominating the better-paid professional university degrees, Black says. “It’s been taking place over quite some time, and it reached a political tipping point at the last election,” he says.

“I think [the teal MPs are going] to make quite a mark at the political level in federal parliament, and I think we’re likely to see growing numbers. This is not going to stop.”

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