Review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 – Submission
The University of Melbourne - Beth Gaze
16 October 2009
I am an academic at the University of Melbourne law School, with over two decades of experience teaching and researching in anti-discrimination law including affirmative action. I would like to make the following submission to the review of the EOWW Act.
Recent workforce data indicate that the workforce position of women has not significantly improved, despite the increase in their participation rate. Instead, many women workers in casual and low paid work bore the brunt of the reduction of working conditions that occurred under WorkChoices, reflected in declining pay equity outcomes. Data published by the EOWW Agency suggests that the situation may also be getting slightly worse for women at the highest levels of the workplace. This data suggests that the EOWW Act has not been able to effect a substantial improvement in women's position at work, or has not been able to counterbalance the effect of other forces that have led to reduced conditions. In any event, there must be concern about the lack of substantial improvement after more than 20 years experience with public and private sector EEOW requirements. I believe the following issues need attention.
Workforce practices
The issue of women's primary responsibility for child care should not be taken as a distraction from workforce practices that disadvantage those women who are at work. Not all women are parents or carers and yet almost all women experience barriers at work. Hence, while progress towards encouraging a more equal sharing of the joys and burdens of caring responsibilities, (whether for children, the elderly or a person with a disability) is important, at the workplace level ensuring that men have the same level of access as women have to flexible working is only one of a number of areas that need attention. Other gendered practices at work and assumptions made on the basis of gender stereotypes require serious attention, and should be the subject of EEOW programs if such programs are to have any chance of changing work outcomes for women. Whether or not workplace EEO programs are an effective way to give this attention is not yet clear.
In particular, many workforce choices are made on the basis of gendered stereotypes, and these are quite difficult to identify and change. One method of encouraging the visibility of and perhaps change to such practices and outcomes could be to ensure that research and publications concerning it are widely disseminated.
Resourcing and research
One of the major problems in Australia has been the limited resourcing to the EOWW Agency and the consequent limits on its ability to analyse or publish the data it holds, or on the wider field of EEOW. My view is that a much stronger level of publishing on both workforce data and analysis, and on the reports that the Agency receives and analyses to see whether progress is revealed are important to progress. Despite all the information provided to the Agency, we simply don't know whether it indicates any progress by the organisations reporting, because no research analyses have been published. This suggests that the Agency or the OSW needs to have a much better research and publication capacity. This capacity could be located away from the Agency if it is thought that employers might thereby regard the Agency more negatively, but the data that is collected should be used for broader purposes than merely providing feedback to the organisation.
By way of example, the Agency has published a summary of employment data affecting women on its web site, but the statistics on its web site are still those dating from the 2004 census, and have not been updated in a usable form. Tables from later ABS reports have been pasted in, but without any analysis attached or any extraction of the statistics that are relevant to the Agency’s functions. I understand this to be due to lack of resources.
Similarly the research the Agency does undertake and publish concerns mainly women on boards and in leadership positions, which is a very small (and probably privileged) section of the women who suffer inequality at work. In my opinion the Agency should be providing data relating to a broader range of women in the workforce.
In particular, I would suggest that an adequate summary of EEO data for the whole of a company’s workforce, indicating staff levels and pay by gender, should be published each year in company annual reports, where it could be considered by shareholders similarly to other data companies might include concerning the social responsibility. This may also ensure broader public attention.
Access to data
In some ways, the employment market for women could be regarded as affected by market failure, as women have incomplete information about the structure and decision-making in relation to gender equity when choosing the companies for which they work. At present the Agency’s searchable database of online reports by the EOWA is very difficult for a casual user to access. The data base should be made much more accessible with, for example, the ability to browse for organisations to research.
While this would assist to some extend for research use, women wanting to check the track record of employers on gender equity at work may need another more easily accessible source. Data on the gender composition of the workforce, gender pay rates and comparative advancement rates for men and women would allow women to be better informed in the employment marketplace provided it was accessible, and may contribute to some pressure for improvement by employers.
All these information gaps I see as flowing from the Agency’s low resourcing level.
Other measures
Internationally, there is a range of measures taken that seem to have been more effective in ensuring a greater degree of gender equality at work, although none has been a panacea. These include serious reliance on contract compliance (use of the government purchasing power to impose contractual requirements for AA) in the US, the use of broad positive duties in the UK, and gender mainstreaming throughout the EU. All could be considered for future use in Australia to make a serious impact on traditional practices in the workforce. Professor Christopher McCrudden of Oxford University has recently written on the importance of the use of the government purchasing power, which does not depend on passing legislation. It has been used only to a very limited extent in relation to the EOWW Agency, and there is great potential to expand its use. It has had significant effect in the US, where it is used in relation to both gender and minority ethnicity.
Broader use of the purchasing power could also be effective in relation to another important area, which is adopting affirmative action for indigenous people and possibly ethnic minorities as well as women.
Yours sincerely
Beth Gaze
Associate Professor
Law School
University of Melbourne
Vic 3010
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