Australia falls again in Global Gender Gap Report

The World Economic Forum has released their Global Gender Gap Report for 2021, and shows Australia once again falling in rank on the gender equality index.

The Global Gender Gap Report measures the gaps between men and women in accessibility to resources and opportunities in 156 countries. The resulting index provides a record of gender-based gaps across four key dimensions – economic participation and opportunity, health and survival, educational attainment and political empowerment.

When the report was first released in 2006, Australia was ranked decently at 15th place. 10 years later in 2016 we dropped to 46th place and now in 2021 we sit 50th out of 156 countries. This downward trend over the past 15 years indicates Australia’s progress to achieving gender equality is moving backwards rather than forwards.

Source: Global Gender Gap Report 2006 - 2021

Economic participation

Educational attainment is the only dimension that Australia has a top ranking in, maintaining our number 1 position. In stark contrast we sit at 70th in economic participation. So while women in Australia may have equal opportunity and access to education, their skills and knowledge gained are not fully recognised in the workplace.

Senior lecturer in the Department of Management at Monash University, Susan Mayson, says this can be largely attributed to structural biases in the system. “One of the big issues is that organisations are really set up to the requirements of men, as in full time, unencumbered workers,” said Dr Mayson.

We are still seeing the majority of unpaid labour and care duties fall upon women in Australia. This means women often work part time or go in and out of the workforce, contributing to the gender gap in economic participation.

Data from the Workforce Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) show that Australia also has a large gender gap when it comes to senior roles in the workforce. While women make up 50.5% of the private sector, only 28.1% are directors and 18.3% are CEOs. Further, 30.2% of boards and governing bodies have no female directors, while only 0.4% have no male directors.

“Men in those senior positions aren’t willing to share the power up the top of the organisation and there are gendered assumptions about what kind of skills and abilities are needed to do those senior roles,” said Dr Mayson. “Those kinds of things have a bearing on women’s ability to progress.”

Source: WGEA

Political empowerment

Australia ranks 54th this year in political empowerment, having dropped from 32nd place since 2006.

Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Monash University, Katrina Lee-Koo, says the functioning of parliament itself creates barriers for women. “One thing … that dissuades women from running for federal parliament, is that they have to spend a long time, nearly half the year, away from home,” she said.

“And we still live in a society where women take up a large part of the care burden. So if you’ve got small kids, if you’re responsible for caring for elderly adults, then it discourages women who don’t have the support at home to be able to do that.”

Further, the workplace culture in Australian politics has been described for years as “toxic” and a “boys’ club,” with female politicians often disrespected and overlooked.

“I’m sure you’ve read enough speeches and interviews by people like Julie Bishop to say the amount of times she was spoken over the top of, she was disregarded, she was not listened to, she was not taken seriously,” said Dr Lee-Koo.

What can be done?

Dr Lee-Koo says that free childcare and free early childhood education is an important initiative that Australia should look towards. “I think that creates more opportunities for women to go back to work on a full time basis,” she said.

“Also I think Australia could reinvigorate. Originally it had quite strong processes in ensuring gender economic budgeting and making sure that there was a strong gender analysis of the budget and specific interventions designed to do things like close the gender gap and the pay gap.”

Australia is badly lagging when it comes to the inclusion of women in the economy and politics. And when we look at the why – why should we close the gender gap, why should we see more women in our workforce and our government – Dr Mayson simply asks, “well why not?”

“There’s that broader case – women, LGBTIQ people, people with disabilities, neurodiverse people – why should people be excluded from having good quality work and having an income? I think that in the interest of having a strong and vibrant and democratic society, that people should have access.”