It’s International Women’s Day and to celebrate, the ABS has put together some of their best stats around this year’s theme: #BalanceforBetter.
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The race is on for the gender-balanced boardroom, a gender-balanced government, gender-balance of employees, more gender-balance in wealth and then there is the ever-elusive work-life balance…
Gender balance in the boardroom
Overall, women are under-represented on private sector governing bodies/boards (25 per cent in 2016-17)
Commonwealth Government boards (43 per cent in 2017)
And as CEOs (17 per cent in 2016-17).
Gender balance in government and the justice system
Women are under-represented as parliamentarians: 29 per cent Federal parliamentarians in the House of Representatives, 39 per cent in the Senate, 34 per cent in state and territory governments (2018)
And as judges and justices: 25 per cent in the Federal Court, 43 per cent in the High Court (2018).
Gender-balance in the workplace
In 2016 the average adult hourly female wage was 89 per cent of the average adult hourly male wage for non-managerial employees (this measure includes both full-time and part-time employees and accounts for the differences in hours worked).
Women are less likely to be employed, especially full-time: 57 per cent of women aged 15 and over were employed, compared with 67 per cent of men in (2017-18)
Almost half (47 per cent) of employed women work part-time (2017-18)
Women spend almost twice as long per week as men in unpaid work such as housework and childcare.
Gender-balance in wealth
Women are more likely to own, or be in the process of buying, their own home: 60 per cent compared with 56 per cent of men (2015–16)
The median superannuation balance is $96,000 for women and $166,000 for men (2015–16)
About half of lone mothers (47 per cent) and a third of lone fathers (34 per cent) are living in low income and wealth households (2015-16).
Work life balance
Women are more likely to:
Live longer - women have a life expectancy of 84.6 years compared with 80.5 years for males (2015-2017)
Be single parents - 82 per cent (2016)
Volunteer - 33 per cent compared with 29 per cent of men (2014)
Care for older or disabled people - Twice as many women as men provide primary care to a person with a disability (2015)
Go to the doctor - in the ten years between 2007–08 and 2016–17, women claimed an average of 17 Medicare services annually, compared with an average of 12 per year for men.
Women are less likely to:
Drink at risky levels - 9 per cent of women compared with 24 per cent of men (2014-15)
Smoke - 13 per cent compared with 18 per cent (2014–15)
Exercise - after adjusting for the effects of age, 69 per cent of females and 61 per cent of males are sedentary or engaged in low levels of exercise (2014–15).