What should women be looking for in the election campaigns of the major parties?  What policy proposals would influence your vote?

Two quite different national women's organisations have surveyed the views of their membership and provide comprehensive reports that will inform and provoke thinking and discussion.  What are your priorities?

Chief Executive Women asked their members to rank the 5 most important priorities to address in the next 12-24 months for women in Australia, from a list of 14 options. Women’s economic participation and progression was overwhelmingly rated as most important (91%). This was followed by the care economy (70%), safety in workplaces, homes, and communities (56%), climate change (50%), and economic growth (50%).

The Women's Electoral Lobby also canvassed members and produced a comprehensive report covering: work; decent incomes for everyone: income adequacy and equality for women; affordable and safe housing for women; women’s health and wellbeing; reducing and eliminating violence against women; strengthening women’s representation; and gender equality in schools, vocational education and training, and early childhood education and care.

Flexibility is becoming increasingly recognised as a key enabler of gender equality by organisations across Australia. Making workplaces more flexible and responsive to the needs of employees is a way of attracting and retaining diverse talent, future-proofing the workplace.

Flexibility in employee work time, patterns and locations benefits both employers and employees and can improve gender equality in the workplace and the home, improve employee wellbeing and reduced exhaustion, burnout, and fatigue.

This Workplace Gender Equality Agency report finds flexible working during the pandemic has also been associated with improved productivity and more women in leadership, but also a blurring of the lines between work and home.  It could boost women’s workforce participation and more equitable access to male-dominated workplaces and leadership roles.

Men working from home have experienced the demands of family, care and domestic work, leading to greater appreciation the value of flexible working. This could change gender norms at work and at home for good.

WGEA data shows that the pandemic has created widespread support for flexible working, amongst employees and employers. Organisations planning a return to the office need to consider how flexible working can be embedded in organisational culture, supported by strong policies and strategies.

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/the-greens-to-introduce-new-policy-supporting-women-led-businesses/

The Australian Government is developing the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 to replace the existing Plan which ends in mid-2022. It has been developed through consultation with victim-survivors, specialist services, representatives from the health, law and justice sectors, business, and community groups, all levels of government and other experts. It's open for public consultation and feedback until 31 January.  You can complete the survey here.

BPW Australia takes national action for women's equality – at work, on boards, in leadership. We take this mantra seriously – it is who we are and what we do.   

Women on Boards UK CEO Fiona Hathorn explains the 5 characteristics good board members need (that you won't find on the job specs). ​Non-executive board members need to understand regulatory requirements, keep companies accountable and provide sound strategic counsel. However, whereas success used to be defined by what you knew, how you work is becoming equally important.

Lisa Carlin is a specialist in organisational development. She advises that, although general strategic skills, business acumen and interpersonal skills are important, to stand out as a Board member you also need to highlight your specific specialisation and depth of knowledge in the field.

Australia is one of only three countries to reach 30% of women on boards on its top 200 listed companies without gender quotas for boards. The AICD and Australian Gender Equality Council Australia have produced a report, Towards Board Gender Parity, that details how Australia reached this milestone. 

Data from the 2021 HILDA survey confirms a fact BPW researched in 2004: women still aren’t having the number of children they say they want.

In high-income countries, there has been a long-term downward trend in the fertility rate. In 2019, Australia hit a record-low of 1.66 babies per woman.  More people are not having children, either by choice or through circumstance. About a quarter of Australian women in their reproductive years are likely to never have children.  The media generally reports this as a women's issue – more women are completing tertiary education and building careers.  But it isn’t just about the women and their choices.

BPW Adelaide launched the ThinkFertility project in 2005 and the website went live in 2007.  Our research revealed two reasons for delayed family formation that were surprisingly  common: young men and women didn’t realise their fertility diminished rapidly in their 30s, and women were struggling to find a partner who was “ready” to start a family.  The website was designed to address the knowledge gap, but it’s hard to fix the men in their 30s and 40s who say they want children – but not yet.

There was, and still is, too much hope in and reliance on reproductive technology: IVF can’t fix old eggs, or old sperm for that matter.

An election is just around the corner. Our young members have penned an open letter calling on all current and aspiring Federal Politicians to act to end gender-based violence.

With 83.7% of young people enrolled to vote, we are a pretty sizeable voting block but we need people of all ages to sign on and support us too! The open letter highlights the need to:

•              Prevent violence from happening in the first place

•              Support those experiencing all forms of gender-based violence (GBV)

•              Give hope for a real housing future for young people with safe, affordable and accessible homes for everyone

•              Support First Nations led justice

•              Fast-track gender equality at home and away

•              Urgently act on the climate crisis.

The Centre for Future Work, hosted by The Australia Institute thinktank, is focussing in 2021 on overwork among Australians, including excessive overtime that is often unpaid. The Centre’s latest report, Working from Home or Living at Work, marks the 13^th annual Go Home on Time Day – an initiative established by the CFW.

The report considers whether working from home will become the 'new normal', even after the acute phase of the pandemic passes, and what new pressures on working hours, work-life balance and unpaid overtime are unleashed by this phenomenon.

Australians work on average over 6 hours of unpaid overtime each week, amounting to 319 hours of unpaid overtime per year per worker averaged across all forms of employment. Based on a standard 38-hour workweek, this is equivalent to more than 8 weeks of unpaid work per worker per year. Extrapolated across Australia’s workforce, this implies total unpaid overtime of 3.3 billion hours per year.

And this is before the burden of women's unpaid work at home is added to the GDP.

Now in its 13^th year, Go Home on Time Day on Wednesday 17 November 2021 is a great way for employees to remind ourselves that life shouldn't revolve around work alone. Conceived by The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work in 2009, the day is a light-hearted way to start necessary conversations in our workplaces about work/life balance, the value of time, and time theft.

Based on a national survey, the average employee in Australia loses 5.3 hours per week to unpaid overtime – or 273 hours per year. Australians worked 2.9 billion hours of unpaid overtime in 2020, worth almost $100 billion per year. That’s a windfall for employers. But it hurts family budgets, reduces consumer spending, and damages the economy. Worst of all, it makes it even harder to achieve a healthy work/life balance.

As COVID-19 affected working patterns last year, even more hours were worked without pay than in 2019 – and more hours, even paid ones, were worked outside of normal working hours. On Go Home On Time Day this Wednesday, protect yourself against time theft: go home, exercise, cook a healthy meal, spend time with your family or your friends.

Check the unpaid overtime calculator here. And if you’re an employer, use it to check how much unpaid time you’re donating to your business, and how much your time is really worth.  Pay yourself properly! You’re worth it.

Australian women have long been under-represented in the national parliament. Although our country was the first in the world to give women the right to stand for election [in South Australia], we currently rank 56^th in the world for female representation, just behind Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Germany and Suriname. By comparison, New Zealand is 6^th.

So why, in 2021, do we have a situation where less than one-third of MPs in the House of Representatives are women?

Researchers from Griffith University investigated whether the low numbers were due to discrimination of female candidates by voters or political parties. They found that, while Australian voters used to preference men over women at the polls, they don’t tend to anymore. Political parties, on the other hand, do.

Parties can impede women being elected by simply not putting them forward as candidates or by preselecting them to stand for unsafe or marginal seats. So they can tick the women's box and maybe meet a quota, but they’re not making a genuine attempt to create real change.