In 2022, at the newly elected Labor government\u2019s jobs and skills summit, economist Danielle Wood put women in the workforce front and centre.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t help but reflect that if untapped women\u2019s workforce participation was a massive ore deposit, we would have governments lining up to give tax concessions to get it out of the ground,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As the CEO of the Grattan Institute, Wood had long been a powerful advocate for women to create a more productive economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cProductivity,\u201d she said, \u201cmight be easy to dispel as the niche fetish of econocrats and AFR journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet here we are almost exactly three years later, with productivity front and centre at the government\u2019s economic reform roundtable.<\/p>\n
In the room are the women who now lead Australia\u2019s three most powerful economic institutions. Wood herself is now the head of the Productivity Commission, alongside the first ever female Treasury secretary, Jenny Wilkinson, and Michele Bullock as governor of the Reserve Bank.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n As Assoc Prof Duygu Yengin has written, research shows that this provides an immense opportunity<\/a>, in that male and female economists often think differently, about \u201clabour markets, taxation, health and the environment, and more broadly on public spending \u2013 everything from welfare to the military\u201d.<\/p>\n Labor has done some good work so far on the gender pay gap and participation by boosting wages in low paid feminised industries, but women still had to work 50 extra days on average<\/a> into this financial year to earn the same as men did last year.<\/p>\n The iron ore deposit has not yet been properly mined.<\/p>\n When Sam Mostyn, who is now the governor general, delivered the Women\u2019s Economic Equality Taskforce (Weet) report as chair in August 2023, it showed that thousands of Australian women who were interviewed across the country want secure work and <\/a>respect<\/a>.<\/p>\n If we are to achieve this, and the productivity gains that will result, we must as a nation advance gender equality in the workplace together with women\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n The absence of both is a handbrake on the potential of Australian women and girls, our society and our economy.<\/p>\n In its submission to the roundtable<\/a>, violence prevention agency Our Watch points out the economic cost of violence against women in Australia which \u201cis estimated at $21.7 billion annually, with at least $4.7 billion as government expenditure, including $1.9 billion in lost productivity\u201d.<\/p>\n Those are the costs of women being killed, beaten, sexually assaulted, families fleeing, crisis housing, legal support, physical and mental health responses and more. All services are chronically underfunded.<\/p>\n Increased investment in primary prevention is far better than any attempted cure, just as the Productivity Commission itself pointed out in relation to healthcare in one of its pre-roundtable papers.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Australia ranks equal first in the world for women\u2019s education but is much lower down the list for women\u2019s economic opportunity.<\/p>\n Australian women are less likely to work full-time than women in many other OECD countries.<\/p>\n Most casual workers are women.<\/p>\n Women still do most of the unpaid care work<\/a>, which is essential in keeping the economy functioning.<\/p>\n