Apr 28, 2015
Female workforce participation: key is childcare, not babysitting
The audience gathered to hear Tony Abbott address a business leaders’ lunch in Sydney last week was strikingly statistically representative.
Just eight of the country’s top 200 publicly listed companies are run by women so it should come as no surprise that only a few of them might be in the crowd to hear the Prime Minister talk about the pending budget and the Government’s long-awaited childcare policy.
When pictures of the event were published, people on social media asked “where are the women?” I’ll posit that most of the wives of the men in that room were at home, cooking, cleaning, managing elderly parents, taking the dog to the vet and – given it’s school holidays – juggling play dates too. In this country, more than most others in the advanced world, caring for the home and for children is still considered a predominantly female occupation.