Superannuation gender gap shrinks as financial equality improves

The estimated number of years to achieve gender equality in superannuation has sharply fallen in the latest Financy Women’s Index (FWX) quarterly results, lifting the overall measure of progress towards total financial gender equality by 0.12 points to a new record high.

The overall index, which came in at 79.44 points in the September quarter, was helped by both the superannuation and underemployment sub-indices recording strong growth, rising by 0.6 and 0.8 points respectively. This indicates that household financial pressures have eased and more women have picked up more suitable and flexible working hours, with 13.9 years now the estimated timeframe to bridge the super gender gap – down from 17 years in June.

Despite the headline highs, the gender make-up of the workforce is signalling an impending shift yet again driven by external social forces, as women’s full-time employment dropped by 0.1 per cent in the quarter alongside a fall in childcare usage.

“This record high is reflective of fragile progress. While we celebrate the gains in superannuation and hours worked, the cracks appearing in childcare confidence and the stagnation in board diversity serve as a stark reminder that our progress is not yet cemented in strong foundations,” Bianca Hartge-Hazelman, Founder of Financy, said.

Rhiannon Yetsenga, Associate Director at Deloitte Access Economics and FWX Advisory Committee member, said the childcare sector’s recent continued confrontation with abuse and mismanagement is having a ripple effect on women’s participation in the workforce.

“When families can’t trust the childcare system, women step back from work and men stay out of the care workforce – reinforcing the idea that caregiving is ‘women’s work’,” she said.

“Breaking that cycle starts with affordable, high-quality childcare, unlocking more equal participation and a more balanced gender workforce over time.”

Leonora Risse, Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Canberra, echoed a similar sentiment in that women having to exit the workforce due to issues in the childcare sector increases the load on ‘unpaid work’.

“The current childcare crisis goes to the heart of women’s decisions to participate in the paid workforce in the sense that it’s most commonly women, not men, who get pulled out of the workforce when childcare is constrained or their family needs them,” she said.

“Even if the numbers suggest that some women are pulling out of the workforce, what they don’t show is the extra emotional and mental strain, as well as the potential guilt, that many parents who are still in the workforce might be going through.”

While the gender pay gap also saw a record low of 11.5 per cent in the September quarter, the sub-index measuring diversity across ASX 200 boards has stalled, recording zero growth in its second quarter in a row to remain at 38.1 per cent.

“While our progress is real and the momentum is visible, the opportunity now is to design an economy where resilience is structural, not gendered. Equality should not be something women must absorb their way into, but something Australia builds into its foundations,” Natalie Previtera, CEO of NGS Super, said.

“The lesson from this quarter’s FWX is not that women are faltering. It is that women have carried the burden of resilience long enough and that, with intentional investment, the burden itself can finally lessen.”