Excerpts from the press release:
Australia's tax system makes women's decisions about their workforce participation unnecessarily complex. This is the finding from a national report released today by Equality Rights Alliance, Economic Security for Women, and the National Foundation for Australian Women. Women's Voices is a report on how the tax system influences women's decisions on work-force participation.
"Many women don't feel confident talking about our tax and transfer systems. But these systems make their decisions about workforce participation and security in retirement unnecessarily complex. There are flow on effects for housing affordability and national productivity, and there is a clear need to make these systems easier to navigate," says Marie Coleman from the National Foundation for Australian Women, and co-author of the report with Helen Hodgson.
The report is based on consultations with Australian women in a range of capital city and regional locations, covering issues such as barriers to pay equity, childcare, superannuation, tax rates, and workforce participation. The consultations were followed up with a technical analysis of the issues raised by women, resulting in a series of recommendations on the issues women raised.
Excerpts from the report:
Child care was the most important factor mentioned in relation to women's ability to return to work. Issues included access to a child care place, quality of child care available and cost. Some placed greater emphasis on cost, some on quality.
One sole parent had had great difficulty finding child care, until she was put on a priority list because she was a single parent and a friend who ran a child care centre was able to find her a place. Others who were better off financially were concerned about finding good quality child care. They were happy about the support through the child care rebate. The high turnover of staff (attributed to low pay) was a problem in that it was better for children to have stability in care givers. One mentioned the poor quality of care in a child care centre that she investigated for placing her child, and this then affected her decision to not place her child in that centre, and thereby not be able to return to work.
There was discussion on the value of grandparents in providing child care. One older woman provided unpaid child care for her daughter's children. This in turn affected her ability to return to work. Other women spoke of mothers who were not available as they were still working themselves, had disabilities or lived inter-state.
The wellbeing of the children was an issue. A woman who worked with culturally and linguistically diverse women said that they tended to want a 'culturally competent environment' such as family day care by a carer of the same ethnic/linguistic background. Others noted young children's desire to spend more time with their mothers.
Children with special needs were mentioned as another issue complicating child care access and suitability.
The cost of child care was reported as a disincentive to returning to work. One woman spoke of returning to work and having no net increase in income, because her net wages were cancelled out by loss of family payments and the out of pocket cost of child care. She asked herself why she was working when she would prefer to be caring for her children herself. But she had to take 'the long term view' that eventually there would be a net benefit.