Female employees in Australia promised more support measures

Australian opposition leader Anthony Albanese has promised new economic measures to support women, aimed at pursuing gender pay equity and improving career options for women. 

On average, women in Australia earn A$255.30 (US$179.04) or 13.8% less each week than men, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The party has also promised to pass laws that impose a “positive duty” on employers to stop sex discrimination and sexual harassment and to make gender pay equity an objective of the Fair Work Act.

Unions have called for superannuation to be added to parental leave to narrow the gender retirement gap, where women on average retire with less superannuation than men. 

Labour frontbencher Tanya Plibersek has highlighted that she believes that this could be helped by making childcare cheaper.

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Albanese has also announced A$11m (US$7.7m) worth of funding for free playgroups in rural and regional areas, which would go towards expanding intergenerational playgroups that mix the young and old.

The move is based on research that showed 90 per cent of human brain development occurs in the first five years of life, “so it is really important that we take every opportunity which is there,” he said, reports NCA Newswire.