Where to start? On Tuesday The Australian published an article by the paper’s contributing economics editor Judith Sloan criticising the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Sloan took particular aim at WGEA’s ‘Daughter Water’ campaign for pay equity which she described as wasteful, but she also derided Tony Abbott for having not shut down the body altogether or significantly curtailed its remit.
How a government agency uses its resources is a legitimate issue to dissect and public campaigns are no exception. Had Sloan’s riposte merely taken aim at WGEA’s daughter water campaign it might be difficult to dismiss in its entirety.
The issue of pay equity, which the campaign seeks to highlight and address, is serious. Whether the daughter water campaign adequately conveyed the credibility this issue demands is a fair question. And it’s not an insignificant one because ambivalence about the existence of the pay gap, and its perceived triviality, is powerful in ensuring it continues. Giving opponents like Sloan ammunition to mock the issue is precisely why credibility is critical. (Though it’s worth noting that, in all likelihood, even with the sharpest campaign possible, WGEA would remain in Sloan’s firing line.)
In any case, there is a significant difference between critiquing the utility of a particular campaign or slogan, even unfairly, and dismissing an issue altogether. Sloan didn’t merely propose the campaign was poorly conceived; she ridiculed the existence of the gender equality agency itself and dismissed pay equity, and workplace gender equality, as non-events. She did so with some disregard for accuracy.
It wasn’t. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency was formerly known as the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, which was established in 1999. Before that it was known as the Affirmative Action Agency which Bob Hawke introduced in 1986. It was renamed WGEA in 2012, under Gillard, but Australia has had a government agency responsible for gender equality for almost three decades.
Evidently, Sloan is not enamoured with the pursuit of workplace gender equality and, as such, is scathing about a government-funded body with that objective. What makes that a little curious is that she is an economist.
Whilst “gender equality advocates”, by whom Sloan is entirely underwhelmed, might be deigned a bunch of bleeding heart apologists seeking to change the world on some moral imperative, the economic case for gender equality cannot be denied.
Why else would the world’s finance leaders commit to reducing the gender gap in their national economies as a strategy for achieving the stated economic growth goal at the G20 last year? As heartening as it might be to think they were motivated, even partly, by the moral objective of equality, it’s not likely.
Two incontrovertible facts are relevant in the G20’s commitment to narrowing the gender gap. The first, plainly enough, is that a gender gap exists. There is not a country in the world for whom that is not true and Australia fares particularly badly. If no gender gap exists, which Sloan appears to be arguing, why would the G20 leaders consider closing it?
Second, decreasing inequality by increasing women’s workforce participation is an effective and legitimate economic lever. Goldman Sachs’ chief economist Tim Toohey estimates that closing the gap between female and male participation in Australia would increase economic activity in the country by $195 billion.
How a country best addresses that gap to deploy that lever is up for debate and what role a government agency can play in that pursuit is worth exploring. In dismissing WGEA and the pursuit of workplace equality, Sloan inadvertently reminds us why a body that requires employers to be cognisant of gender inequality, is still so necessary.
Personally I live in hope for the day WGEA is not required too, but I suspect my reasoning is different than Sloan’s.