The Gender Pay Gap No-one is talking about

We hear a lot about the pay disparity between working men and women in Australia.

Currently, the national gender pay gap is said to be 12% - doesn't seem like a lot, but take into account total remuneration and the figure is actually 21.7%.

Lies, lies and statistics...

In my opinion, any gap is dismal, and applying my simplistic logic, I can't see why we can't abolish all gaps immediately.

Same work, same experience, same pay.

But there is another gender gap, that hardly anyone is talking about and it is wholly more worrying to me.

Look at the graph above.

At 55, the participation of women in the workforce plummets to just 63% - 10 points lower than men at the same age. After 65, the participation rate for women is just 11%. This is crazy when you consider many of them will live well into their 80s and may want to work and earn longer.

Why?

I'm sure there are lots of reasons, one of which is endemic ageism - which women suffer as much as men, but often a decade earlier.

Here is the problem.

Women live longer than men. More and more of them are single or widowed later in life, and in 2019, the Older Women's network reported that women over 55 were the fastest growing cohort of homeless.

Why?

They don't have enough financial resources, cause for damn sure they are not choosing to be homeless.

Where do financial resources come from?

Work!

We have to end endemic ageism in the workplace, and if there were to be a focus on a group we must work hard to get into the workforce and keep them there as long as possible it is the mature woman.

Because a gap for the working woman of 21.7% is hard enough to bear. But a gap of 100% for someone without work is a bigger gap than anyone can bear.

Let's start doing something effective, shall we.

At Silver & Wise, I've dedicated several years to creating tools and resources to help mature people transition into self-employment and business ownership when they encounter ageism in the working world as employees or aspiring employees.

We're doing our bit.

What are you going to do about it?