It will take another 169 years to close the gender pay gap, new research from Bauer Media and The Future Laboratory UK has shown.
The research underpins the launch of Bauer’s Female Futures initiative that also sees the media company launching a female-focused digital destination, WomenToLove, and a branded content division, Story54.
Speaking at a breakfast launch event in Sydney, Future Laboratories director Ruth Marshall-Johnson said that while progress towards equality has been made, we are “living in a world of unfinished business”, and called for brands to do more to even the playing field.
Marshall-Johnson added that in 2016 the economic gender gap reverted back to where it was in 2008, after a peak in 2013.
Bauer’s research showed that this has been driven by women’s underrepresentation in industry, a lack of women in the tech sector and fewer women engaging in entrepreneurial activity.
Code like a Girl founder Ally Watson, who also spoke at the event, said that as a women starting out in the tech industry, she often found she was in the minority and experienced a lack of confidence.
“I’m not a gamer. I didn’t like beer,” she said, revealing that it made it hard for her to establish connections in the work place.
In advertising, women make up 46% of all staff, but only account for 11% of creative directors. Marshall-Johnson noted that this can skew the output of many ad agencies.
However, she highlighted that some brands are abandoning cliched and tired methods in their communications with women, such as BodyForm, which was the first women’s sanitary brand to use red blood in its advertising, instead of blue dye.
With regards to women’s equality in the workplace, Bauer research suggested that one solution could be for governments and businesses to double the pace at which women became digitally fluent, which would lead to gender equality in the workplace by 2040 – both in Australia and other developed nations.
“Women have recognised that the current system won’t work for them and are recalibrating, reorganising and redefining what it means to be a woman around a new set of priorities that will force governments and businesses across the globe to change how they operate,” Marshall-Johnson said.
Australian Women’s Weekly editor in chief Nicole Byers added: “There has never been a more exciting time to be a woman. There has never been a better time to be publishing to women. There has never been a more inspiring time to work for a global company that is owned and run by a young woman.
"It’s a privilege to discuss how women’s place in society is changing with some of our partners and advertisers and the role that we are playing in this journey.”
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