Yahoo Finance Why women have gone backwards financially
Women’s financial progress has gone backwards, as the Australian economy slows.
The slowing Australian economy has also put the brakes on women’s financial progress, a new report has found.
The Financy Women’s Index (FWX), which measures the economic progress of Aussie women, slipped by 0.1 points to 76.2 points out of 100 in the December quarter.
Weakness in the jobs market amid higher interest rates appears to have weighed down the index, the report found.
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Annually, the index dropped 0.1 per cent from 2021 to 2022, marking the first time in a decade that women’s financial progress finished the year in negative territory.
“While the decline is marginal, even the smallest backward step on this journey is a large policy failure,” FWX advisory committee member and independent economist Nicki Hutley said.
AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver said the backsliding was disappointing because it came in key areas around employment, but he hoped it was just a temporary setback associated with economic disruption.
“The good news is that progress towards gender financial equality continues to be made in areas like board representation, the gender pay gap and unpaid work,” Oliver said of the report.
“The pandemic appears to have accelerated behavioural change on the part of men in terms of contributing to family and home-related unpaid work, which is critical to freeing up women to pursue career-related endeavours.”
How long will gender equality take?
According to the report, it will now take 24 years to close the gender pay gap, up from 22 years in 2021. It will also take 18 years to achieve equality in underemployment, up from 15 years in 2021.
The biggest time frame for achieving gender equality was for education and expected earning, which stood at 139 years.
Recent calculations by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) found the gender pay gap was now at a record low of 13.3 per cent.
Despite this, women are still earning around $13,000 less than men each year. On average, a woman earns 87 cents for every dollar a man earns.
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