All this rubbish was applied in a major experiment, in a couple of very large workplaces.

They put women incharge, & in many of the best paid positions.

The organisation I know well, is now a major catasprophe, where it was only a minor one, previously.

They added affirmative action to accelerate the result.

Welcome to the Queensland government. It was the second of the two, the NSW government was the first.

Any questions?

“Women continue to be over-represented in clerical, sales and service jobs, holding 87 per cent of advanced clerical jobs.”

Maybe we should ensure more of these sorts of roles are reserved for men, to even up the gender imbalance.

“Women are massively under-represented in the top echelons of employment, with only six female CEOs in the ASX top 200 companies and one in the top 10.”

Maybe “merit” and “suitability for the role” has something to do with this “result”.

Enforcing affirmative gender equality would risk the employment of those clerical jobs, 87% held by women.

“Women on average in 2006 earned $941, only 84 per cent of men’s average weekly income.”

Maybe the men all went on to get qualifications for a life of work and girls assumed they would get something to fit in around looking after children.

OR

Maybe women leave on time to attend to after school children whilst dad works the overtime hours so they family can afford to pay the mortgage.

Why people earn what they earn is the sum result of a hundred variables of which ‘gender’ is but one.

I agree with the criticisms expressed by HRS and Steel

Fractelle is applying her usual misandristic corruption.

my elder daughter has worked her way up the organization of an insurance company from starting as a callcentre telephone operator, 5 years ago, to being, currently, a senior supervisor and is being “groomed” for further advancement.

Her advantages over others, a very “proactive attitude” and "work ethic".

Maybe the Fractelle’s and Eva Cox’s of the world need to consider their own “attitude” and “sense of self importance and entitlement” which allows them to presume they have a God given right to the higher management roles to which most working men have never been able to lay claim to.

Hasbeen – your example sounds like the classic aside (often applied to New Zealanders)

How do you get a woman into the upper echelons of management in a small business?

Give her a big business to start on….

Fractelle,

"As for working towards family friendly work places, both men and women gain equally. Why should men always be the ones to carry the financial burden and women have their careers castrated simply because of raising and caring for the next generation?"

Actually, I know a couple of couples who have made the decision that the guy will stay at home and look after the kids while the mother goes off and works. They each have their own reasons for doing so, however it's patently untrue to say that 'men all ways carry the financial burden... women have their careers castrated'.

It's a decision that needs to be made by the couple, and that's not to say that it's a decision that can't change as time passes - the family might choose to have the mother work for the first 5 years and then reassess from there.

It seems to me that the author here is the one stuck in the 50's. The article isn't representative of the way that broader society works.

Silly article, stupid title.

Ideally Eva’s aims/points are sound but on almost every other level they’re problematic at best. Simply because her conclusions are sweeping generalizations and need major ‘ye…s buts’.

The stats while mathematically accurate they don’t consider the myriad of other related factors that determine this issue on the ground. Therefore this article is in the realms of world peace and motherhood.

I hasten to assert that EQUAL PAY for EQUAL WORK and EQUAL career OPPORTUNITIES for ALL are foundational to a fair society.

Comparing average (?) dissimilar wages is virtually meaningless and a furphy.

Business generates wealth through efficient use of capital and resources and needs consistency and reliability of both (Economics 101). Not every woman (or man) today is prepared to dedicate the required effort/sacrifices for a career some even prefer part time jobs. “I’m sorry but that key meeting in Tokyo must be postponed because I have family duties” just doesn’t wash in reality.

Likewise paid maternity leave is a social rather than business issue, our civilization is built around Capitalism where “there are no free lunches” someone pays, usually the consumer.

Would a pensioner/average citizen be sanguine about high prices or this year’s share dividend reduction knowing it’s paying some million dollar exec(s) to have a baby(s) etc?

For every Woman who hits the “Glass Ceiling” there are 100s of qualified men who don’t make it either for equally discriminatory reasons. In reality advancement in business isn’t necessarily based on merit or appropriateness because the decisions involve the vagaries of human judgements. Often the decisions are more often based personal power (security) issues than gender. Therefore ‘gender bias’ is more an Anthropological, psychological and sociological issue rather than just business (capitalistic).

This is not to say that there shouldn’t be change to ensure gender Equality of opportunity but like all structures one starts at the base and work up. Change society and psychological imprinting then business will follow. Logically People run businesses not the other way around as legislating businesses first implies.
In essence legislatively cutting male power won't achieve anything positive.

This article has some good points particularly in regard to problems experienced by part-timers in a largely female workforce. However, in some ways the article smacks of the ‘me me’ syndrome.

Do we really expect everything or believe in the myth that we can “have it all”. Superwoman status has worked against women and Cox mentions in her article the dilemma that men are not contributing to the household in the same way that women now contribute to household income. Surely, this is largely a matter within families and between couples. The government cannot legislate that men must do more housework.

It is our economic system that largely dictates our family/work structures. But the idea that true equality won’t exist until we can share the care of our children without affecting our careers or “dumbing down” our careers makes a few assumptions.

Not everyone perceives the raising of children as a negative but a positive even if it means taking some time out from the paid workforce and even if it means that you won’t be the next CEO of Macquarie Bank. I think we would gain much more by talking about how we can raise the status of parenting and what financial supports can be put in place to make it easier for families who might not choose the populist path. Families are different and they have different needs but at the moment the focus is much more on ‘working families’ and child care rather than offering other alternative supports.

There is a lot of talk how we are much better off than our parents or grandparents but it now takes two parents working to sustain a family and even if you take into consideration our growing obsession with consumerism/materialism the cost of housing has risen to take up a much larger part of our incomes. The level of personal debt is high.

We give a lot of lip service about children but when it comes to their wellbeing it is always the interests of the economy that come first at the expense of other factors.

It's a fact that women have higher education standards than men and are often more qualified than their male counterparts doing the same job. Women are concentrated in clerical, nursing, teaching and retail while construction and mining are men's domains.

Lesley Parker said http://www.smh.com.au/news/planning/youre-on-your-own/2008/08/25/1219516368481.html

With one in four Australians now for all intents and purposes a temporary worker, the [recent layoffs are] a sharp reminder for many about the financial perils of being a casual, a contractor or self-employed.

The latest National Australia Bank survey has business confidence at its lowest ebb since the early 1990s recession, while the Reserve Bank is forecasting economic growth of just 2 per cent this calendar year - a sharp decline from the 4 per cent-plus annual pace of just a year ago.

The Reserve, though it hasn't put a precise figure on it, is also saying unemployment will rise.

If you're an employee and you lose your job, your entitlements will depend on the redundancy provisions in your employment contract or industrial award and on the minimum standards prescribed in state and federal legislation.

If you're a casual or a contractor and the tap is turned off, there'll be little or no notice and no redundancy payout.

For such people, job security lasts only as long as the next pay packet or invoice. Their unpredictable income makes it hard to save, they don't have entitlements such as sick leave and holiday pay. [Casuals find it harder to get mortgage loans and accumulate super].

"For many casuals there are quite big fluctuations over the week, over the month and over the year."

Dun & Bradstreet says the two segments [in financial stress], according to its debt-referrals data, are micro-businesses - defined as having five employees or fewer, often self-employed "sole traders" - and the 18-to-34 age group, which includes many casuals.