There are improvements but it's moving at a "pretty glacial pace"
Workplace culture remains a major factor in the prevailing gender segregation in Australian organisations today, according to an expert, who flagged the reasons why gender balance in the workforce is important.
Jessica Geraghty, Senior Associate in the Grattan Institute's Economic Prosperity and Democracy program, told The Grattan Podcast about the reasons why gender segregation in workplaces persists.
One of them, according to Geraghty, is workplace culture.
The senior associate said this is often cited as a barrier to attracting and retaining women in male-dominated industries and jobs.
"And it's not just behaviour like harassment, which can obviously be a problem and is more problematic for women in male-dominated areas, but it's also things like discriminatory practices in recruitment or performance evaluation," she said in the podcast.
"It's things like workplaces not offering family-friendly policies or penalising people for taking advantage of those policies."
Gender segregation in workplaces
In Australia, gender segregation remains present at an occupational and industry level, with nearly half of the workforce employed in an industry dominated by one gender, according to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
Geraghty said there are improvements to gender segregation in Australia, but it's moving at a "pretty glacial pace."
Uneven allocation of unpaid work is another factor that enables gender segregation in Australia, according to the senior associate.
She pointed out that because not all firms are likely to offer part-time work or flexible arrangements, the burden of unpaid care limits women's employment and opportunities.
Educational pathways and low pay in feminised industries are also factors contributing to the segregation, she added.
"Work in areas like care has historically been undervalued because of gender discrimination, and that's led to low pay, poor working conditions, and low social status of those jobs," Geraghty said.
"And so that's another really important driver of the segregation that we see in our workforce today."
Impact of gender segregation
The presence of gender segregation in Australia remains a significant factor behind the gender pay gap, according to WGEA.
"The way to think about that is that not all industries and occupations are paid the same," Geraghty said. "We see that female-dominated industries and occupations tend to be paid less, which means that as women are concentrated in those kinds of roles and areas that contributes to the pay gap."
Another impact of a gender-segregated workforce is talent shortages.
"We know that businesses find it harder to fill vacancies for jobs that are segregated and they're more likely to be in shortage," Geraghty said. "So, that means that our labour market is less efficient than it could be."
And with businesses not looking entirely at their talent pools, this leaves Australia with a higher unemployment rate, according to the senior associate.
Addressing gender segregation at work
Geraghty said businesses have a role to play in reducing gender segregation in their workplace.
"When it comes to workplace culture, for example, it is up to businesses to ensure that they have appropriate policies in place, that their recruitment, performance evaluation processes aren't inadvertently limiting the careers of women or people with disability," she said.
The rise of flexible work also helped more women and people with disabilities to participate in the labour force, she added. Men should also be more encouraged to take more caring responsibilities at home through parental leave.
The government's efforts in lifting wages in some industries strongly impacted by gender segregation are also important.
"That should help improve the ability of those industries to attract more workers, both men and women," Geraghty said. "But there's other things they can be doing as well around improving working conditions in those spaces."
The senior associate said the benefits to reducing gender segregation in Australia are not limited to individuals and businesses.
"By reducing gender segregation across the workforce, it's good for individuals, it's good for businesses, but it's good for the economy more broadly."
