The untapped resource that could replace the mining boom: Women

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Urbis chief economist Nicki Hutley said if female workplace participation were to grow by 5 per cent over the next decade, an extra $165 billion would be added into the economy.

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“Population growth and productivity growth are weaker than they used to be, and the mining boom has gone away, so one way you could grow the economy at a rate closer to what we are used to is to encourage more women into paid work by just tweaking public policy.”

Urbis chief economist Nicki Hutley said if female workplace participation were to grow by 5 per cent over the next decade, an extra $165 billion would be added into the economy.

“Even a 1 per cent increase in participation in 2017, held steady after that, would increase GDP by an additional $58 billion over the next decade,” Ms Hutley adds.

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There are issues around the cost of childcare, workforce flexibility, unfavourable penalty rates and a lot of jobs are structured around eight hour days in the office.

“These are the sorts of industries that many women go into but there are institutional barriers that prevent women from getting into the workplace,” Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia chief executive Pauline Vamos said.

“There are issues around the cost of childcare, workforce flexibility, unfavourable penalty rates and a lot of jobs are structured around eight hour days in the office.”

Ms Hutley is urging the Turnbull Government “to go beyond lip service of supporting gender diversity” and put in place genuine mechanism measured that support women in careers.

“We need to spend more time focusing on investments that give long term economic gains. Understanding how by supporting childcare now, that generates growth and also creates an environment where it becomes more normalised for women to be in the workforce whether they are mothers or not,” she said.

The private sector is also being encouraged to recognise the benefits in hiring more women after a new study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics found companies with women in executive leadership roles can see substantially better profits.

Ms Vamos adds while there has been lost of well-meaning programs, such as gender targets in big businesses and the Male Champions of Change, women are still battling the same attitudes.

“What’s happening is that a lot of women are saying it’s not worth it, I am going to do it myself and start my own business. I think because of this women could be the disrupters of corporate Australia,” Ms Vamos said.

Constraints with childcare and lack of workplace flexibility are two of the main reasons that Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon left a well-paying office job to become a financial educator, commentator and founder of themoneymentorway.com.

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I used to spend hours trying to express milk, edit page proofs and eat my lunch, all at the same time, so I decided to create my own job, on my own terms and so that I wouldn’t miss out on my kids or my career

“I used to spend hours trying to express milk, edit page proofs and eat my lunch, all at the same time, so I decided to create my own job, on my own terms and so that I wouldn’t miss out on my kids or my career,” she said.

“While many companies pay lip service to flexibility for women, men also get virtually nothing.”

Liberal Senator Michaela Cash said the government is taking action to boost women’s workforce participation and has set a modest target of creating 200,000 more jobs for women by 2025.

But Senator Cash also added that the “government cannot meet this ambitious goal alone”, and that the private sector needed to do more.

“Creating the conditions to enable more women to get and keep jobs, women to work more hours and support women’s career progression will enable Australia to leverage the untapped economic potential of women,” she said.

Bianca Hartge-Hazelman is the founder of women and money website Financy.com.au.