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Young Women Talk
Download and view 16 diverse stories from young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women from across Australia. Listen to their unique and personal stories.
This DVD is part of a broader project, "Young Women Talk", designed to provide opportunities for young women aged 18-29 years to share their personal stories of learning and working and their vision for women in Australia. “Young Women Talk” was initiated by S4W a national network of non-profit organisations primarily concerned with improving the lifelong economic wellbeing of Australian women.
Security4Women hope this will create greater awareness among Australian government decision makers of the life experiences of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
View the videos
Young women talk – Women’s stories about learning and working. 50 interviews from across Australia
S4W is working with young women across Australia aged 18-29 years to capture their experiences of learning and working and their vision for women in Australia. The first stage of this project involves 50 young women across Australia telling their stories that will be audio recorded, transcribed, edited and published as a report. In conjunction there is a video project component Young women talk. Aboriginal women’s stories about learning and working. 12 selected stories from across Australia directed by Kim Lawler.
S4W is working with young women to provide an opportunity for them to share their experiences of learning and working and their aspirations. The aim is to bring together 50 diverse stories from across Australia to create greater awareness among Australian government decision makers of the life experiences of young women.
Download project outline here
Email us if you are interested in participating.
Commission on the Status of women CSW
Each year S4W consults with women about the themes for CSW. We have prepared a discussion paper about the priority theme for CSW 52 (2008) "financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women" to help women understand the theme more broadly and be able to contribute. Download here or email us with comments or a submission.
KEY ISSUES FOR AUSTRALIAN WOMEN …… 1000+ women have their say
Over 1,000 women have nominated what they consider to be the 4 key areas of concern for Australian women in 2006;
• Work and Employment
• Health and Violence
• Financial security DOWNLOAD SURVEY REPORT HERE
• Work, Career and Family
1,012 women, from as many as 97 different organisations and networks, completed a Key Issues survey in April and May 2006. The quantity and detail provided in their responses indicates how strongly women feel about these issues and what should be done to address them.
The primary area of concern, "work and employment", includes many persistent issues; equality of male and female wages and salaries, equal access to secure well paid jobs and no sex discrimination in employment practices and in the workplace. These still remain critical issues for Australian women.
This particular issue is of important to me at the moment. I am a single mother, been a victim of domestic violence, lived in remote areas, supported indigenous issues etc... But the one thing that has kept me motivated is achievement.. working toward a leadership and financial goals to provide my child with every opportunity and a full life.. Sadly I have recently discovered I'm not financially rewarded like my male colleagues.. In all honestly I'm hurt and shocked, this issue had never occurred to me and now I'm aware first hand it exists..
The new workplace changes, both WorkChoices and unfair dismissal changes were seen to add further insecurity to the already complex world of work for women.
The other 3 key areas of concern are Health + Violence, Financial security and Work, career and family all attracted numerous responses and targeted solutions. In addition to identifying these specific issues there were a significant number of comments about the impact of the intersection of issues and the aggregate effect on women.
The aggregate effect of issues - work arrangements that help balance family and other responsibilities, affordable flexible quality childcare, adequate incomes for women in groups vulnerable to poverty and fair financial outcomes following family breakdown - is now greater than the individual effects of each in isolation.
Indigenous women only make up a small proportion of the total Australian population however they experience disadvantage at levels unthinkable in 21st Century Australia. In remote parts of Australia they make up significant proportions of the population and are a growing population whose potential will be lost or minimised without urgent action taken to improve their health education and living standards. While all Indigenous people face disadvantage, not just women, women often bear the greatest brunt of the disadvantage as they are the childbearers, carers for children, disabled and aged people and the most likely to be victims of physical and sexual abuse.
The comments also reflected general concern about the increasing insecurity in women's lives often related to the responsibility women take for others.
With growing instability and uncertainty because of imposed changes to the social security and workplace relations systems and because of a growing intolerance to cultural differences on top of the entrenched discriminations against women, families are going to be under more stress. Women bear the brunt when their family is in crisis. Social welfare and support services are going to be in greater demand. Such support networks are already underfunded, understaffed and undervalued and predominantly employ women.
Our Focus
Our focus is lifelong economic well being for Australian women. The research and consultation conducted so far has highlighted many factors that are important for women and their families. These include pay equity, access to financial planning and superannuation, childcare, carer needs, retirement income equity and access to education. Our work has also incorporated other issues that affect women’s capacity to achieve economic certainty such as the consequences of violence and access to services for Indigenous and Non-Indigenous women.
Monthly Updates
April 2008
May 2008
Mid Year Report - June 2008
Email us if you would like to be added to our database.
Contact Us
Security 4 Women
Coordinator: Elinor Buckley
Phone: 0410 683 284
Email: projects@bpw.com.au
Website: www.security4women.com
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New Reports
Launch of Financial Literacy Information facts sheets.
"Women Understanding Money"
This new resource for women developed by the Financial Literacy Foundation in Association with OFW and SFW was launched by Mr Paul Clitheroe, Chairman of the FLF Advisory Board. Women understanding money is a series of 14 information sheets for women, developed by the Foundation in association with the Office for Women and Security4Women. The following link has articles on a whole range of topics related to women and money.
http://www.understandingmoney.gov.au/content/media/releases/
Research report
Survival Guide
Paid Maternity Leave
The buoyant Australian economy needs increased workforce productivity to continue to grow.
Australian families need family friendly working environments to allow increased productivity. Healthy families come from healthy parenting. Australian children and their parents need to have
- Opportunities for new parents to bond with their newborns
- Family friendly working environments on parents’ return to work,
- Access to good quality and affordable child care, and
- The children need love and hugs to grow into healthy adults.
Australian businesses need Government policies to help achieve this. Access to paid maternal and paternal leave cannot be left to market forces. Currently, Although 77% of women in the finance and insurance industries have access to paid maternity leave, only 1% of women in the retail sector are covered, and 2% in hotels and restaurants: most women work part time, most are in the industries with no cover. Many small businesses cannot afford to pay for maternity or paternity leave, and many have difficulties managing where staff have extended leave from work. Rural women whose work is essential to the family farm have no coverage at all.
This coalition of small business organisations, women’s organisations, and child development groups calls upon each major political Party Leader commit to the following:
- To establish on forming Government an expert committee to examine and advise on the options to achieve a cost-effective universal system of paid maternity and paternity leave for Australian families;
- To publish the report of the expert committee, and
- To undertake to implement the recommendations of the expert committee within two years.
Link for more resources http://www.nfaw.org/social/maternity/resource.html
Final Report - Too Big To Ignore
"Future of Australian Women's Housing 2006 -2025"
Final report
CEDAW, Convention of the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
CEDAW RESOURCE KIT AND MATERIALS ON CEDAW and the Human Rights Treaty system
Women's rights action network Australia
COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/52sess.htm
Report Australian Government Delegate, Alex Haynes
Final Summary of S4W & OfW Post CSW 52 roundtable
UN Security Council Resolution 1325
Security Council Resolution 1325 was passed unanimously on 31 October 2000. It invited Secretary-General Kofi Annan to "carry out a study on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, the role of women in peace-building and the gender dimensions of peace processes and conflict resolution."
Download the PDF version of UN Security Council Resolution 1325
Lifelong Learning for Women - Policy Paper
"Lifelong Learning: work related education and training; meeting the needs of Australian women" S4W in collaboration with WAVE, invested in a major research project with the focus on lifelong learning, particularly work-related education and training, for women and girls. This project consisted of five small-scale (vignette) research projects to investigate identified priority areas. The research was funded through the Australian Government’s Office for Women (OfW) and enabled S4W to propose policy direction and strategic suggestions to better facilitate economic security for women. The research agenda was set within the broad global/local context of lifelong learning and OECD global policy priorities.
Work related education and training - Meeting the needs of Australian women
What Women Want - A strong alliance of national women’s organizations seeks to examine the potential impact on women of working age (in particular on low income women, sole parents and women with disabilities) of the legislative changes to income security or 'welfare to work', and the changes to the Industrial Relations framework, and the likely interaction of the two sets of policy changes.
Now the legislation has been enacted the What Women Want project has turned its attention to establishing some robust benchmarking of women's wages and conditions through a new research project; Women's pay and conditions in an era of changing workplace regulations.
The first stage has been funded by NFAW, WEL and HREOC and it involves a comprehensive "stock-take" analysis of available data to identify key indicators of women's pay and employment conditions and develop current benchmarks. The second stage, which is not fully funded (please go to NFAW website for details about how you can contribute, www.nfaw.org.au) involves a case study of 100 women across Australia as a way of understanding how, if at all, the legislative framework is impacting on their employment conditions. This part of the project has been designed with the potential to become a longitudinal study that tracks women's experiences of workplace change over time. We envisage the research arising from this two-part project will play a critical role in informing the Australian Fair Pay Commission's deliberations and the monitoring undertaken through various institutions.
Download Workshop Proceedings, NATSEM modeling on the impacts of proposed changes on sole parents and people with a disability and Press releases here:
WorkChoices and Women
Focus on women Information Paper
HREOC Workplace Relations Submission
Release 211105
Senate Submission -Welfare to Work 211105
Release 181105
Legislative Review Workshop 111105
Key Issues 180905
NATSEM modeling - People with Disability
Media 260805 - Sole Parents
NATSEM modeling - Sole Parents
Media 30805
Workshop Proceedings 120705
Need more information about WorkChoices?
Working Women’s Centres
There are Working Women's Centres in Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania. The Centres provide information, support, advocacy and advice to women on work-related issues. They also recommend other services in Victoria (JobWatch) and Western Australia (Women's Law Centre and Employment Law Centre) where there is not a WWC.
You can find out more about the Working Women's Centres at www.wwc.org.au
On this site you will find information on Your rights at work, Awards and agreements, Workers compensation and health and safety, Work and family, Discrimination and harassment, Workplace bullying and Dismissal.
Our Projects
Talking about Work - Security4Women (S4W) has designed this project to identify the key issues for different women surrounding work and uncover what women need to assist them to effectively address these issues. Download the project outline here.
Two projects from 2005 are Lifelong Learning and Women, Saving and Superannuation
Lifelong Learning – Work related Education and Training
Lifelong learning is a global policy priority, adopted and promoted by OECD and European Union. This Policy is linked closely to the need for both initial and on-going vocationally oriented education and training, given the rapid shifts in the nature of work, technology and changes associated with globalisation. Our S4W research project will offer strategic direction for outcomes in this area. It is an integrated project that identifies priority areas for focus within the project and accommodates the diversity of perspectives and needs of ‘women’, rather than generalising across the broad category 'woman'.
This project focusses on 5 key groups of women.
Young Women - the segmentation of women and girls’ fields of study and workplace participation remains a concern due to the resulting pay differential that is well documented. While girls’ participation in VET in Schools is high they are concentrated in course areas such as child studies, beauty and hairdressing, hospitality and business administration areas.
Download the Getting Real: Young Women and Girls, Working Futures, VET and VET in Schools Executive Summary here or contact the Project Office for a copy of the full report.
Women returning to work, women requiring re-entry training and women in the workforce needing to up skill to enable career change, Older women – This is being undertaken in partnership with Job Tactics
Download here
Women in poverty/low ses – This is being undertaken in partnership with families in the Smith Family Learning for Life programme
Download copy of final report here
Women in micro and small business – This is being undertaken in partnership with Job Tactics
Download here
Indigenous women accessing employment and training, recognising that women’s issues are different to men’s, analysing what counts as work - This is being undertaken in partnership with Waltja.
Download copy of final report here
Women, Saving and Superannuation
The issues in this project range from retirement income, financial literacy, education about saving and investing, and superannuation itself. Following a successful roundtable in April 2004 S4W continues to progress work in this area through a number of avenues. S4W contributed to a survey developed by AFSA, Australian Superannuation Funds Association. The survey focused on gathering data about women’s participation and choices and has been published. We also prepared a literature review of current research into superannuation and retirement incomes to help develop some key themes, issues and questions. Through this relationship S4W presented a paper at the ASFA National Conference, Nov 10-12 - Saving 4 the Nation, "Saving Women".
We have now compiled the results of our survey. Download the results here.
Download related documents here;
Women Saving and Superannuation outline
Superannuation Roundtable Summary
ASFA research – gender differences in retirement savings
Our major work in 2003/2004 was a major research project, which involved the What Women Want Survey completed by over 3,000 Australian women.
The top three issues identified as important for themselves and for women generally were:
• Balancing work and family and other responsibilities
• Affordable education and training for all ages
• Equal pay for women and men doing the same job
The research report identifies the varying factors that enhance or hinder women’s ability to seek or choose pathways to acquire economic sustainability, including those that may not be plainly apparent. Download the Summary paper, July 2004 or contact the Project Office for a copy of the full research report.
From our work identifying what women want we produced a policy paper that provides an excellent overview of the issues affecting women and their wellbeing particularly in education and training. Download Policy paper, May 2004.
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