Protecting and educating children is everything, until it comes to the actual costs of doing so.
That’s why the training, skills and experience of those working in early childhood education continue to be undervalued compared with those working in construction.
That direct comparison – childcare versus construction – came up in Federal parliament last week during a debate in the Federation Chamber on the gender pay gap, when Liberal National Party MP Colin Boyce declared that:
“You cannot possibly compare women who are working in the childcare sector, as an example, to men who work in the construction industry.”
“It’s just simply not the same thing”.
So does that mean one of those industries is justified in paying workers significantly less than the other?
Because that’s what Boyce appeared to be suggesting during the debate, which resulted in Minister for Women Katy Gallagher labelling his comments as “casual misogyny” given the industry that does pay less happens to be dominated by women.
The comments show something else: just how far we’ve gone in devaluing care work in Australia, to the point where participating in any aspect of the construction industry is likely to see you paid significantly more than any aspect of caring for and educating the next generation.
Meanwhile, what if we do compare women working in construction with men working in construction? We see an industry boasting one of the biggest gender pay gaps: at 31.8 per cent.
Boyce went on during his pitch to explain the gender pay gap, noting that “many women don’t want to be CEOs of companies or take leadership roles.”
For the record, many women do want CEO and leadership roles and some men (like women) don’t want such positions either.
Around a quarter of CEO and Heads of Business roles are held by women, according to the latest WGEA data released in November. Many other women don’t get there due to several factors that go well beyond the “choices” they make, including a lack of affordable and accessible early childhood education options.
And when women do lead businesses? The gender pay gap remains. Women CEOs earn an average of $74,923 less per year than their male counterparts when calculating base salary. Once you include total remuneration, including bonuses, that gap blows out to a massive $158,632.
Boyce later moved to clarify his comments in response to questions from the ABC, which saw him pulling on another all-to-familiar thread: that he is “a father of a daughter and grandfather to granddaughters” and therefore believes that men and women should be paid the same amount for the same job.
“What my speech highlighted was the fact that various reports commissioned to determine the gender pay gap compare completely different industries that are not related which is not comparing apples with apples,” he told the ABC.
Boyce’s comments came during a debate on the government’s bill that would see large employers required to select from a range of gender equity targets, to be eligible for government work.
Both construction and early childhood education are industries that depend on each other. Despite involving very different work and gender ratios.
So what if we did compare — and value — women working in childcare to men working in construction? What it we placed as much status, money and opportunity on the work it takes to build a house, as the the work it takes to care for and education the next generation?
We’d be able to contend with the chronic shortages confronting the early childhood and education sector, with 21,000 workers required to meet such needs.
We’d better support the social infrastructure it takes for other sectors to operate to their potential and meet their own chronic needs, including in construction.
We’d see more women elevated to CEO and leadership positions.
We’d deliver better outcomes and opportunities for the next generation of children in the five most foundational and critical years of their lives.
And we’d likely see more boys and men aspiring to work in the care economy.