The Australian Government must undertake a long-term, targeted and deliberate investment program to ensure women are leading and building the economy in equal measure to men.
Immediate actions
5.1. Leverage the government’s purchasing power to incentivise and support businesses committed to – and demonstrating positive action to achieve – inclusive and equitable employment practices.
This should prioritise awarding contracts to businesses that deliver positive action in areas including pay equity, addressing gender segregation and segmentation, building respectful workplace cultures and leveraging workplace diversity and inclusion.
Additionally, ensure that government funding of services and sectors (such as through the provision of care services) lifts the quality of jobs rather than entrenches inequalities. Incorporate these principles, priorities and effective compliance into the Commonwealth Procurement Rules.
5.2. Continue to invest in programs to increase the proportion of women in Parliament, government boards and community leadership roles.
Long-term actions
5.3. Develop programs that encourage women’s equal participation and flourishing careers in emerging industries such as clean energy, new technologies, climate-positive industries, digital, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) development. Additionally, increase women’s access to seed funding and capital for entrepreneurial initiatives.
5.4. Develop an inclusive procurement policy that prioritises awarding contracts to businesses that demonstrate positive action in gender equality, pay equity, and diversity, equity and inclusion. This could include setting targets for the number of women employed/engaged through government-issued contracts, particularly for services in male-dominated industries.
5.5. Establish a supplier diversity program to actively seek out and support businesses owned by women, minority groups and other under-represented groups, to build their capability and capacity to bid competitively for government procurement and contracts.
Supporting information
Purchasing power, both private sector and government, is a powerful lever for advancing gender equality and improving women’s economic equality. [129] It can be wielded to drive investment in women-owned or led businesses, and/or ensure businesses with gender-responsive policies and practices in place for employees and their supply chains are prioritised for contracts. [130] This approach has become known as ‘gender-responsive procurement’.
Gender-responsive procurement involves sustainably selecting goods, services or public works from businesses that have gender-responsive policies and practices for their employees and supply chains. A literature review conducted by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) [131] in 2020 found there are four common forms of gender responsive procurement:
- Procurement to support gender equality in supplier organisations
- Procurement from women-owned businesses
- Procurement to progress gender equality in the procuring organisation
- Strategies to improve gender equality throughout industry ecosystems.
State and Territory governments, including Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia, are increasingly exploring and expanding the use of procurement policy to advance social impact objectives.
For example, the Victorian Government’s Social Procurement Framework prioritises social and sustainable outcomes in government spending. This requires government buyers to assess gender equitable employment practices when procuring all goods, services and construction in Victoria.
Under the Australian Government’s current Workplace Gender Equality Procurement Principles, private sector employers with 100 or more employees in Australia must demonstrate compliance with the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (the Act) to receive procurement contracts valued at or above certain thresholds.[132]
WGEA’s literature review draws on research suggesting occupational gender segregation can be reduced by awarding procurement contracts to suppliers who are committed to employing women in traditionally male-dominated industries. [133] Studies have also shown that inclusive workplaces provide stronger value propositions to their employees and customers, have better decision-making processes and stronger financial performance. [134]
Advancing women-owned businesses
Bringing a gender lens to investment decisions can uplift gender equality across the board by providing organisations with financial incentives to ensure their workforces are gender diverse and that their policies are gender equitable. It can also support the gender gap in financing for entrepreneurship.
Internationally, women-owned businesses are estimated to receive only one per cent of procurement spend by large corporations, despite making up one in three businesses globally. [135]
Women need greater access to seed funding and capital to drive entrepreneurial initiatives in Australia. Research from the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman’s (ASBFEO) office found that access to capital remains a significant barrier to growing women-led small businesses. A survey of more than 600 Australian women-owned, women-led small businesses found that 43 per cent of respondents identified access to capital as a central barrier to growth. [136]
In addition, a 2022 report by Deloitte Access Economics found that only 22 per cent of Australian start-ups are founded by women, with only 0.7 per cent of private start-up funding in the 2022 financial year received by solely women-founded businesses, despite increasing tenfold between FY18 and FY22. [137]
This could have far-reaching benefits for the economy. Boston Consulting Group, in partnership with the Cherie Blair Foundation, found that boosting the number of female entrepreneurs to parity with men would boost the Australian economy by between $71 billion and $135 billion. [138]
Women in leadership
Men are typically over-represented in management and leadership roles across most industries. This is particularly the case in mining, construction, utilities and manufacturing. [139] Even in female-dominated industries, men are more likely to occupy more senior positions.
Women remain under-represented in all key decision-making roles across almost all industries in the Australian workforce, comprising only: 22.3 per cent of CEOs, 35.1 per cent of key management positions, 34 per cent of board members and 18 per cent of board chairs. [140] Of the ASX200 Boards only 35.7 per cent of non-executive directors are women [141] and only 14 ASX200 CEOs are women. [142]
Research by Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC) and WGEA for the Review of WGEA Act 2012 found that an increase of female ‘top-tier’ managers by 10 percentage points or more led to a 6.6 per cent increase in the market value of Australian ASX-listed companies, the equivalent of $104.7 million. [143]
The Australian Public Service (APS) has demonstrated that targeted gender equality strategies are an effective way to promote more women into senior leadership positions, with the proportion of women in senior executive roles in the APS increasing from 26.8 per cent in 2001 to 52 per cent in 2022.
The Government is also working to improve women’s representation on Government boards and advisory bodies, through setting measurable gender balance targets and bi-annual reporting on these targets. At 31 December 2022, women held 51.4 per cent of Australian Government Board positions, up from 33.4 per cent in 2009 when targets were first introduced.
In the 47th Australian Parliament, women hold 44.4 per cent of seats across both chambers. [144] This is made up by 38.4 per cent of seats in the House of Representatives and 56.6 per cent in the Senate. This includes 10 women in Cabinet (43.5 per cent), which is the largest number of women to ever hold positions in an Australian Cabinet. Women account for 41.9 per cent of overall positions in State and Territory Parliaments in Australia. [145]
Six of the eight State and Territory Parliaments are gender balanced, with women and men each holding at least 40 per cent of positions. These are the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, the Parliament of Western Australia, the Parliament of South Australia, the Parliament of Victoria, and the Parliament of Tasmania.
Responding to future challenges
Women’s representation in decision-making positions is also essential to our response to climate change and disaster mitigation. Responding to climate change also involves a transitioning of industries, from resource-intensive fossil fuel industries towards renewable energy. This presents an opportunity to rebalance the existing gender-segregation in the resources sector.
The net-zero economy will be responsible for 67 million new jobs by 2030. [146] However, the current gender distribution in the sectors – where most jobs will be added – suggests that women will hold just 25 per cent of these new jobs under the current trajectory. It’s critical that women are well represented in emerging sectors, such as critical technologies, critical minerals, advanced manufacturing and the digital economy, to avoid further entrenching the gender divide between valued and undervalued work.
According to the International Labor Organization, the transition to energy sustainability will require reskilling workers for 20 million new jobs by 2030. Women are under-represented today in sectors where major reskilling efforts will take place, such as energy (where women account for just 23 per cent of the workforce), building and materials (31 per cent), industrial goods (21 per cent) and engineering (25 per cent). Six million jobs will be reskilled in the oil and gas segment of the energy sector, but only 22 per cent of reskilled workers will be women. [147]
In 2022, women made up 39 per cent of the clean energy workforce, with men making up 61 per cent. [148] Women also only made up six per cent of solar installers, eight per cent of energy efficiency engineers and four per cent of wind turbine technicians in 2022. [149]