Why we still need women's lobbying campaigns

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There are still substantial differences between the life choices and chances for males and females, despite all the changes we have made in the past decades.  Women and men are likely to have different experiences in the following broad areas:  types and time spend on paid and unpaid work, what we earn and own, what types of qualifications we have, who cares for others, who holds the power and makes the decisions, safety and crime and parenting.  While many fo these differences arise because of choices we make, the question is whether such choices eg mothering, should mean women being financially pensalised, for instances.

Women's Electoral Lobby was set up as a non-party political lobby group in 1972 to influence election results.  We encouraged voters to think how to choose representatives that care about the issues that concern us and parties that will take these on.  WEL still has work to do in making sure government policies are changed as is shown by the figures below.

Statistics from the 2006 census and other Government sources show differences

• One parent families make up 15.8% of the total families counted in the 2006 Census.  87% are female and most are on benefits.
• Many more women than men (almost double) live alone after age 55,
• Five million people did voluntary work during 2006, with women (36%) volunteering more often than men (32%).  People aged 35-44 had the highest rate of volunteering (43%), mainly mothers.
• The census shows the inequalities continue in the household as well as in the paid workplaces.  This is obviously related to who cares for the children and hours of paid work

• However the earnings of those aged 20-24, already show women as lower paid the higher the pay rates go.  ABS figures show that women earn about 16% less than men in hourly pay as well.

• High level job holder figures also reflect differences as women are just 12% of senior executives of big companies but 35% of the public executives
• 55% of women are in paid work, which has risen 5% since 1996 but 44% of women work part time, about twice the level of men.
• Women cluster in certain types of jobs and all of these are paid less than men clustered jobs of similar training and value - so no equal pay!
• Part time workers are often casual so have little chance of promotion and security.
• We have no universal paid maternity leave nor the right to request more family friendly work conditions.

These figures raise issues of how workplaces could be organised, part time productivity better values and services like child care better funded so women had more options of combining their paid and unpaid roles and men may be more able to share the spread of responsibilities.

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