The G20 has pledged to increase women’s workforce participation globally. We asked three members of Chief Executive Women to weigh in on how this can be achieved. These are their answers.
Elaine Henry OAM, formerly Executive Director of the Cancer Council (NSW) and Chief Executive of The Smith Family
Social changes have trailed economic changes
“The metrics speak for themselves in terms of our economic indicators. For example, it has been estimated that an extra 6% of women in the workforce would increase Australia’s annual GDP by about $25 billion dollars. So what are obstacles? Herein lies the rub.
Firstly, we need to have acceptance of the fact that social changes in today’s world have trailed economic realities and that women’s changing roles affect social structures, family functioning and how children are raised. So before we can realise the potential economic gains, countries need to invest in social infrastructure as well as physical infrastructure, and support cultural change in the workforce.
If we listen to the voices of women themselves, we can start to chart a roadmap by initially committing to overcoming current obstacles. In Australia, for women of child-bearing age, the cry is for a universal system of accessible, affordable, quality early childhood learning and development infrastructure.
We can learn much from the experiences of countries which have already gone down this path and in this regard the much anticipated final Report of the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Child Care and Early Childhood Learning which canvassed various options could provide us with a blueprint.
For women in the older age groups, the obstacles tend to be on the “supply” side. Employers must take the lead in effecting cultural change in the workplace.
Without a commitment to action, the words will have a hollow ring.”
Andrea Staines FAICD, Non executive director of Aurizon, Goodstart Early Learning, Transport for NSW
Invest in early learning and lead from the front on restructuring work
“There are two fundamental benefits from quality early learning and care recognized worldwide by expert academics and practitioners – the first is improved life outcomes for children, the second is increased female workforce participation. Governments need to ensure that mothers can access sufficient early learning and care, at a quality level that makes them comfortable leaving their children.
“It is only at the pinnacle of the pyramid, the CEO role, however titled, that all responsibility for an entity comes together. Every role below this could be resized according to the availability of the best performers.
Large roles could be halved and performed separately by two people working part-time; or roles could be job-shared. Part-time should be offered to anyone in the workforce, and job-sharing should be offered to any gender combination – female-female, female-male, male-male – without discrimination in performance management systems, to legitimize both in the organization.
Ultimately, government may need to introduce policies, including targets, to shift societal expectations of acceptable work hours and locations. Precedents of shifting societal expectations include the introduction of policies on discrimination, harassment and safety.
Before the government introduces such policies, it should lead from the front, to set an example and learn from experience before designing policies. Leading from the front is also significant in effecting cultural change – of Australians employed, over 16% work for the Australian public service. “
Gillian Franklin, MD of The Heat Group
Value the economic power of working mums
“The problem with participation of women in the workplace is not one of a small entry but one of retention. We know this because Australian women have pride of place in education, with a rank of No 1 in the OECD Gender Gap Report, however we are embarrassingly low on economic participation with a score of 22.
We need to look at how we encourage women to continue working, once they decide to start a family. Middle managers, at the key stage of their career and when they should be establishing and nurturing networks, harnessing broad business skills and gaining critical experience and expertise to place them in good stead for the future, are choosing to ‘opt out’ of the business world in order to have a family.
Why? Many reasons, not least of which because the cost and lifestyle sacrifices for working and having children in childcare during these years is too high vs the net financial gain. So they stay at home, oftentimes for many years. And when they return (usually to a less senior role, which is another issue), they never catch up.
So how do we address the ‘drop out’? There are many ways to do this, but one concept I rarely hear spruiked is that more working women is better for the economy; in fact, they are even more valuable than working men.
We need to recognise the economic value of working mums. An important oversight in all the “cost versus benefit” economic modelling of tax-deductible childcare is the amount of money that working mums spend in the economy. Ask any working woman how many pairs of shoes she owns, and it is likely to be 10 times more than her male counterpart. Furthermore, working mums spend more than working childless women.
Working women spend a small fortune even on little things like having our hair done, buying make up, buying new outfits, paying babysitters. Working mums are the economic powerhouse. Make it financially viable for mums to continue to work and earn, and they will happily return their income into the economy, probably in the local shoe shop. “