Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Jagajaga for bringing this chamber's attention to this important issue of gender pay equity. In my first speech, last week, I noted that the population of Kooyong boasts an above-average proportion of women—all of whom are above-average women—which means that the impacts of the gender pay gap are very keenly felt by my constituency.

The gender pay gap measures the overall inequity that women experience in each industry and across the national workforce. This set of figures is obviously based on a large amount of data, but it's also emblematic of the inequities and disadvantages faced by women, which are much harder to quantify. For instance, in 2022 women make up more than 50 per cent of our workforce but only 20 per cent of CEOs. This figure isn't particularly alarming because we're especially worried about CEOs—although we do want to see gender parity all the way to the top—but because it tells a bigger, more complex story that is way too familiar for working women. It's the story of gender-based discrimination in hiring, in promotions and in opportunities to progress within a company or a department. It's a story about women facing greater barriers to reach every level of seniority along the way to being a CEO.

Much of the gender-based discrimination in hiring and in opportunities for career progression is underpinned by the belief that female employees are burdened with caring and domestic labour outside of their professional work—to a far greater degree than male employers. And the reality is that they are. The most recent census found precisely what every census in the last 15 years has found, which is that women disproportionately shoulder the burden of domestic labour, with the average woman working up to 15 hours each week to keep the house running and its occupants cared for, and the average man putting in under five hours each week. It's no wonder that fewer women are climbing the leadership ladder and fewer women are present at CEO levels when many of us are effectively forced to work a second part-time job.

Women are hired below their proficiency and then promoted less frequently, due to gender bias and discrimination. What's more, once in the job they're paid less than their male counterparts across their industry and comparative industries. In the most recent financial year men earned, on average, $25,000 more than women. This extraordinary figure isn't an anomaly. Women work just as hard as men but earn significantly less than men every year of their working life. That yearly financial disadvantage accumulates over decades to create massive comparable deficits in savings at the time that women retire.

It's not just a lifetime of earning less than men that sets women up for greater hardship in retirement. Women tend to spend many years out of the paid workforce, working unpaid to raise the next generation, and during this period of their working lives they are of course not paid any superannuation.

Kooyong is one of a handful of electorates with a superannuation gap. That is, the disparity in the superannuation held by men and women is more than 33 per cent. This means that the average retired woman in Kooyong has just two-thirds of the wealth that her male counterpart retires with, despite working just as hard for just as long. After a lifetime of earning less money, spending more time in unpaid domestic work and accruing less superannuation, it's no wonder that the largest and fastest-growing group of people facing homelessness are women aged more than 50.

As I campaigned to represent Kooyong here in parliament, I was unequivocal that superannuation must be appended to maternity leave and to other care related leave as an essential step towards pay equity for women in retirement. Furthermore, our government needs to show leadership in its promotion of equality, respect and safety for women at home, in the workplace and in the community. Empowering women's workplace participation contributes not just to economic security and financial independence for each woman but also to the economic growth and prosperity of our nation.

I echo the member for Jagajaga's sentiments that there remains significant work to do to end gender inequality, and I look forward to working collaboratively with members across the parliament in the coming years to achieve parity of income, wealth and financial security for women.

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