If the Australian Government truly wants a socially inclusive society, and for women to participate more actively in the workforce, it MUST do more to make childcare affordable. Before you stop reading this because “I don’t have kids” or “this doesn’t impact me directly” – WAIT: Childcare isn’t only an issue for women and families with children. Access to a range of different types of affordable childcare impacts all Australians.
How?
For those women who choose to work (or have to for financial reasons) it means financial empowerment and independence. Financial independence from men, from their families, from the government. It means more superannuation to help them in their senior years. With more financially secure women around there will be less of a burden on government social services in the future. For Australian businesses, more working women means access to a rich resource that in the past hadn’t been available. It means having an organisation that is truly diverse in its makeup, which will ultimately translate into a more profitable bottom line. In a recent survey from McKinsey, 72% of respondents believed there was a direct connection between a company’s gender diversity and its financial success (read the results here). For Australian society at large, greater participation by women in the workforce means a more balanced society that fully represents its community. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about this when she was recently in Australia. I’m paraphrasing here but Ms. Clinton suggested that societies with more women leaders are less autocratic, experience less wars and are more emotionally advanced (well, I added the last bit ;) ). What can the government do to ensure greater women participation in the workforce? There have been a lot of options discussed about how to make childcare more affordable including tax deductions for nannies and other forms of care. I believe a first step that would have a huge impact is for the government to: Extend the Child Care Rebate (CCR) to registered childcare. At the moment the CCR (50% rebate of out of pocket expenses) is only available to “authorised” child care centres, which tend to be larger, community-based centres with lots of children. Most family day care options are “registered” not “authorised” and therefore cost a significant amount more. Family day care tends to be a smaller, family-style environment run from home. For many families, this is the next best thing to having a family member care for your child, particularly babies. For a woman to consider returning to work, she must have absolute faith that her child is being looked after in the best possible way, and this means different forms of care for different families. If the government truly wants women to have “options” for childcare it should consider rolling out the CCR to include registered childcare options.
What can YOU do?
Lobby lobby lobby…. Please write to your local MP, or Min Kate Ellis (Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare and Minister for Status of Women) and Min Tanya Plibersek (Minister for Human Services and Social Inclusion) on this issue and suggest the above. This affects ALL Australians. It is important for our future and will open up more opportunities for women and create huge benefits for society at large. What do you think?
