Vigilance is the key theme of this quarter’s Financy’s Women’s Index report and it’s a reminder that gender equality cannot fall off the agenda when competing priorities emerge.
Progress on gender equality is not guaranteed.
When progress is made, it’s because individuals, organisations and governments make it a priority.
The Financy Women’s Index, founded by Bianca Hartge-Hazelman, is an important tool in keeping us accountable.
The Index shows how small differences in work, pay, care and savings can compound over a lifetime and lead to meaningful differences in gendered outcomes.
This quarter’s results highlight a modest gain of 0.61 points.
But behind this incremental change is a slower medium-term trend: where the Index improved 2.41 points in the two years to March 2024, it declined by 0.16 points in the two years to March this year.
The recent plateau could reflect a shift back to business-as-usual after several years in which gender equity benefited from a stronger focus through DEI agendas, a broader recognition of the value of diverse leadership and a more deliberate effort to correct long-standing inequities from government and business.
That momentum continued, albeit unevenly, through the pandemic and its immediate aftermath.
But more recently, it appears to have softened.
One example is corporate boards. As many ASX 200 boards have moved closer to the 40% target, there is a risk that board gender diversity has slipped from being an active priority to something treated as largely achieved.
This is despite there being many other opportunities for progress – not just through gender but in other aspects of diversity; for example, 92% of board directors are Anglo-Celtic despite the ABS estimating that 32% of Australians are born overseas.
More broadly, gender equity has also had to compete with a more crowded public agenda.
The backlash against DEI, combined with sustained cost-of-living pressures, has made it easier for equality to be framed as a secondary concern rather than a central economic issue.
Gender norms, which underpin how society believes people should behave based on gender, are also sticky and in recent years have been impacted by the rise of the manosphere.
Emerging technologies such as AI may also reshape workforces and makes vigilance more important, if productivity and restructuring benefits are not shared evenly.
Regardless of the exact cause, it’s clear the Index may have entered a period where gains are slower, and where progress is more easily reversed.
Now in its 9th year, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge Bianca’s contribution. Quarter after quarter, Bianca has kept gender equity firmly in focus, even when it is no longer at the centre of public discourse.
This vigilance is what’s really needed to enable change.
