Regression in the gender pay gap and a stronger pickup in male employment growth over female has stifled a rebound in Australia’s gender equality progress, the latest Financy Women’s Index (FWX) shows.

The FWX is a quarterly measurement of the economic progress of women and timeframes to gender equality in Australia. The FWX provides a snapshot on gender equality across seven critical areas: education, employment, underemployment, wages, unpaid work, ASX 200 board gender diversity and superannuation.

A small increase in the number of women joining ASX 200 boards and a narrowing of the gap between males and females in the underemployment rate meant that overall, the FWX rose by 0.5 points to 72.9 points in the June quarter from 72.5 points in March.

But the FWX is yet to recover to where it was at the end of 2021 and in annual terms, the FWX is lower than where it was in June 2021.

“It’s great that we are seeing an overall pick up in women’s financial progress and gender equality outcomes, but we need momentum, and not regression in the gender gaps in employment and wages, if we are to claw our way back from the disruptions of the pandemic,” says Bianca Hartge-Hazelman, founder of the Financy Women’s Index.

COVID a major disruptor for gender equality outcomes

COVID is largely to blame for disrupting a decade of positive momentum in gender equality progress in Australia, particularly when it comes to employment and wages.

Since March 2012, the FWX headline score had been increasing with each passing year and progress started to hit its stride from December 2017, helped by improved gender gaps in employment, wages, leadership, unpaid work and superannuation. But in December 2020 the impact of the pandemic became most apparent with the FWX suffering its most significant fall on record.

Holding back economic gender equality has been a worsening gender pay gap, which widened to 14.1 per cent in May, based on the latest average weekly wages data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.

The gender divide also widened in employment outcomes, with the number of monthly hours worked by men up by 2.8 per cent in June compared to 1.3 per cent for women.

“The Financy Women’s Index has shown welcome progress in the June quarter, but is still down from its 2020 high and there remains a long way to go before women achieve economic equality with men,” says Dr Shane Oliver Chief Economist, AMP Capital.

“The pandemic showed a path forward in enabling more flexible working, but it also had a darker side in seeing many women take on more of the tasks around the family and home. The key is to build on the positives and keep the momentum to improvement going.”

ASX 200 board leadership is strong

In terms of timeframes to economic gender equality, women are now closer to achieving gender equality in ASX 200 board leadership than for any other FWX indicator.

“But the pace of progress towards gender equality in leadership continues to slow and because of this, it is questionable if we will even achieve equality before 2030 in this area,” says Hartge-Hazelman.

A widening gender pay gap in May resulted in the timeframe to equality in this area increasing to 23.4 years from 22.7 last quarter.

Unpaid work still the worst performing area

The worst performing area of the FWX remains unpaid work, which stands at 59 years before equality is achieved.

This timeframe is about double that seen in employment, where the years to equality fell to 26 years in June, from 26.3 in the previous quarter.

Superannuation has a similar timeframe to equality at 19 years and underemployment is at 16.3 years, affected by the recent volatility of the past two years.

“We’re decades away from equality and that makes me frustrated and fired up!” says Dr. Lili Sussman, Chief Strategy Officer at Wisr. “For others feeling this same way, let these statistics be a catalyst behind driving action.

“Employers should be re-evaluating how equal their processes really are.”

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