Australia’s workforce industry has many issues when it comes to gender equality that are often overlooked.
As a result, women have been facing multiple disadvantages throughout the years according to recent data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
One major finding shows that women have been working multiple jobs at an increased rate of 7.21 per cent over the span of six months, compared to men with only a 2.65 per cent increase.
This was between September 2022 and March 2023.
Despite this increase of women working between multiple jobs, they are still earning less than men each year.
This is due to the gender pay gap which has been in Australia since 1969.
The gender pay gap is essentially the difference of earnings between men and women across organisations, industries and the workforce.
On average women are earning 253 dollars less than men each week, according to recent findings from the workplace gender equality agency. That is a 13,183 dollar difference annually.
But this is not the only problematic figure.
Females are also working fewer hours despite having multiple jobs.
There are many reasons that can impact a woman’s ability to work. Some factors include: Going into labor, childbirth, postpartum depression, caring for a newborn, gender discrimination in the workplace, and more.
The difference based on sex for average hours worked in March 2023 were:
- Females with main jobs: 24.3 hours less than men.
- Females with secondary jobs: 18.8 hours less than men.
While females are working more multiple jobs than men, another problem they face is having a higher underemployment rate.
Underemployment refers to people who are unwillingly working low paying jobs with insufficient hours.
The graph below shows the average underemployment rate between males and females over the past five years.
Underemployment was at its highest in 2020 when most people were struggling to keep a stable job due to the impacts of covid. However, since then it has slowly started to decrease for both men and women as lockdowns and staying home are no longer mandatory.
While the underemployment rate for women remains higher than men, this only shows another significant issue that continues to remain in Australia’s workforce industry.
The primary area in which females are working multiple jobs is the health care and social assistance industry, with less than half of the multiple job workers identifying as men.
This industry covers a range of areas such as age care, nursing, childcare, and more.
When it comes to nursing and childcare, there is a common view that these are the typical female jobs because of the way women are genetically built.
This includes common ideas of being delicate and emotional, so therefore more caring.
This increase in multiple job workers is most likely a result of the free nursing and midwifery courses the Australian government has put in place since this year.
As of 2022, females made up 88 per cent of employed registered nurses in Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
While the Victorian Government does have a strategy to work towards more gender equality within the workforce, problems still remain.
As of now, the stereotypical statistics of Australia’s work industry continues to reinforce ideological views of gender inequality.
