The Financy Women’s Index (FWX) has increased in the 2022 September quarter, displaying advancements despite COVID-19 disruptions.
The FWX, a measure of women’s financial progress, increased to 73.3 points out of 100, up 0.4 points from 72.9 in June.
It was helped by gender gap improvements in board leadership (+0.8 points), education (+0.5 points), and underemployment (+1.9 points).
Covering key areas like employment, underemployment, the gender pay gap, superannuation, board leadership (ASX 200) and education, the FWX measured timeframes to economic gender equality. At its current pace, it would take 23 years to achieve gender financial equality.
“There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that Australian women fully recover financially from the pandemic and aren’t economically penalised for the choices they make in areas such as education and employment,” said Bianca Hartge-Hazelman, author of the FWX.
“While it is encouraging that the FWX is tracking stronger in 2022, up 0.2 points, it is still concerning that, in annual terms, the FWX remains 1.6 points lower than the record 75-points achieved in September 2021 and September 2020.”
As per the index, it would take 139 years to achieve gender equality in education, now the worst-performing area, despite rising to 93.02 points out of 100 in the September quarter.
Superannuation had a 19-year time frame to equality, despite initial projections of 33 years at the start of the year.
The FWX area with the smallest time frame to equality was board leadership. It has improved to 6.1 years in the September quarter. This was due to slow but gradual improvements in the number of women in ASX 200 board positions, where they accounted for 35% of positions.
FWX emphasised a need for a time frame target to be set as part of the Federal Government’s pledge to achieve gender equality.
These included superannuation payments in the Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave changes; investments towards financial literacy programs in schools and universities; mandatory gender-balanced targets across board rooms for 40% female board directors across all listed companies by 2030; and a 5% procurement spend target by the government towards female owned and led businesses.
