Gender and Diversity
The gender income and wealth gap remains a persistent issue of policy concern, despite long-run increases in women’s participation in tertiary education and employment, and advancements in policies promoting gender equity in Australia. Existing BCEC research highlights significant gender pay gaps in the workplace, which in turn can exacerbate other forms of gender inequity such as slowing the rate of accumulation of superannuation wealth, increased reliance on government income support over the life course, and increased exposure to poverty in old age. Research under this theme sheds light on issues that affect gender equity in WA and nationally, including gender pay and wealth gaps, women’s representation in senior leadership, occupational segregation, the effects of informal care roles on employment outcomes and gendered differences in age discrimination in labour markets.
Related Projects
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WA Women’s Report Card 2019
Inside the black box: Intra-household resource allocations of older couples
Missing girls: Understanding the causes
BCEC|WGEA Gender Equity Insights Series
Developing Culturally Relevant Indicators of Wellbeing: A Yawuru Example
Missing workers: retaining mature age women workers to ensure future labour security
Related Publications
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It is commonly argued that maintaining and enhancing Australia’s standard of living will require increasing the proportion of the population attaining university level qualifications in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Accordingly, governments and universities have been proactive in encouraging... Read article
This paper explores how cultural and migrant backgrounds affect boys’ and girls’ high-school academic performance. Scores from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment are analysed for Australian children from migrant and non-migrant families, conditional upon a measure of gender... Read article
Glass ceilings have featured heavily in Australia’s workplaces for centuries but in recent years significant changes have been made. Women now make up almost 50% of Australia’s workforce and hold around 40% of all full-time jobs. Although women still remain under-represented... Read article
This paper provides new insights on the labour market discrimination faced by indigenous Australians – one of the most disadvantaged indigenous populations in developed countries. Combining two large, nationally-representative datasets, we decompose the employment gap between indigenous and non-indigenous populations as of 2014-2015,... Read article
This paper investigates whether female political representation in national parliaments influences climate change policy outcomes. Based on data from a large sample of countries, we demonstrate that female representation leads countries to adopt more stringent climate change policies. We exploit... Read article
Recent evidence shows that highly skewed sex ratios at birth are observed not only in China and India, but also for a number of countries in the Southeast Europe and South Caucasus – a region that has seen eruptions of... Read article
The Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre team acknowledges the Wadjuk Nyungar people as the traditional owners of the land on which the Centre is situated.