As usual, International Women’s Day has seen the release of a flurry of surveys on everything from career prospects to money management.
But perhaps the most damming was a joint effort between cosmetics company The Heat Group (whose founder Gillian Franklin was one of the stars on our list of top female entrepreneurs) and UNIFEM Australia, the United Nations Development Fund for women.
The survey found that 92% of women believe the gender balance is not even in Australia and more action is needed, with 41% citing a lack of domestic support as one of the key stumbling blocks. Women said poor support at home means they are unable to work longer hours and can struggle to promote themselves in the professional world.
The Government’s moves around paid parental leave and flexible working arrangements will start to help in these areas, Franklin says more governmental support in areas such as wage discrimination and affordable child care are also necessary.
But that’s not the worst thing in this survey. For me, the fact that 41% of women believed they had been passed over for a promotion because of their gender is a huge worry and says that the time for talk is over – we need to start to tackle these problems with more than words.
Now, we know that SmartCompany’s own survey of female entrepreneurs found that almost two thirds are against the idea of quotas to improve female representation, but I think they are wrong.
I have to agree with the minority – including Franklin and recruitment industry veteran Julia Ross – who say that things are just changing too slowly.
The pay gap is not closing. Discrimination is falling too slowly. Flexibility arrangements are not supportive enough.
What about a two-staged approach?
Firstly, we could ask companies to report on levels of female representation and they use a sort of name-and-shame approach to drive improvements.
If this doesn’t work, we need to look at the quota system.
Whatever the case, we need more action. Talk (and endless surveys) aren’t driving change.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
