Mass investment to address gender inequality — but how to measure if it works?

The government hasn’t shied away from addressing the drastic disparities between Australian men and women, pledging close to $5 billion to improve gender equity. 

Minister for Women Katy Gallagher proudly held the women’s budget statement in her hand during this afternoon’s budget press conference, reading aloud from the statistics and telling the public that this government was going to change things. The government has announced record investments in closing the gender disparity gap — but then again, so did the last government, to little avail. 

The statement is frank but its findings and aspirations aren’t new. We’ve had the horrifying statistics drummed into us time and time again. But will anything change? 

More than three in 10 assault hospitalisations between 2019 and 2020 were caused by domestic violence. In 2018, 228 women were killed by a current or former partner. First Nations women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised because of violence than non-First Nations women. More than half of women in their 20s, and 34% of women in their 40s, have experienced sexual violence. Twenty-two per cent of Australians believe that “gender inequality doesn’t really exist”.

The cost of violence against women and their children is estimated to be $26 billion a year, so the $1.7 billion for the recently announced national plan to end violence against women and children is a small investment if it does what it promises — eliminate violence within the span of a generation. 

There’s $65.3 million over four years from 2022-23 to invest in respectful relationships education to help prevent gender-based violence and keep children safe (though just $1.1 million of that comes through this year).

The government addressed the “motherhood penalty”, highlighting how taking time off to care for children impacts career progression. Women reduce their hours in paid work by around 35% across the first five years following the arrival of children, regardless of whether they were the primary earner or not. Men’s paid working hours only drop during the first month of parenthood, with nearly a third of fathers and partners reporting experiencing discrimination when requesting or taking parental leave. 

The government has announced a $4.7 billion investment in early childhood education and care and $531.6 million to expand the paid parental leave scheme up to 26 weeks by July 2026. But there’s been little discussion about addressing childcare workforce shortages.  

Just 34.3% of ASX300 board positions are held by women, and less than 10% of ASX300 CEOs are women. And the gender pay gap remains stubbornly at 14.1%, with a woman working full-time earning $263.90 less per week than a man working full-time. 

Australia now has the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce; is implementing recommendations from the Respect@Work report; is funding the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030; and is developing a national strategy to guide whole-of-government actions to achieve the goal of being a global leader in gender equality.

The government acknowledged, in a separate budget paper, that trying to assess Australia’s equality, well-being and progress indicators compared to OECD data is difficult. Some OECD data takes years to aggregate, with a lag between when the data is taken and when it is published. 

It’s the same story with gender indicators. 

After nearly a decade of Coalition control, it’s taken a long time for gender equity to be given the attention it deserves. But the previous government did attempt to address it (following marches, protests and political resignations). Still, the numbers are slow to change. The previous 10-year plan to reduce violence against women and children did nothing to reduce the prevalence of violence. The current one, again, lacks clear, measurable targets in assessing its success.

There are some moves: following the jobs and skills summit, the government announced it would expand data collection on key gender equality indicators. 

But for $5 billion, it had better figure out exactly what it wants to see to make sure the funding is reaching its full impact.