Happy International Women?s Day!

Happy International Women’s Day! Every year on 8 March, the world comes together to celebrate the achievements and equality of women. While there’s much testosterone at .id, and that the number of women can be counted with slightly more than one hand (there are seven of us – nonetheless, .id is an equal opportunity employer), we sure do know a thing or two about Australian women.

Why do we need women? Apart from being bearers of our “future”, aka children, there’s statistical evidence of why women are important to our society.

WO-manpower – Women in the labour force and employment statistics

While there’s a higher percentage of women working part-time in comparison to men, they still make up 46% of our current workforce according to Census 2011 results.

Source: ABS, 2011 Census of Population and Housing

Work for “nothing” – Domestic work, child care and unpaid assistance statistics

The most interesting thing to me when I look at these statistics is it reminds me of my mother. She works full-time at an NGO, has three kids who were never taken care of by someone else and takes care of my disabled grandmother (her mother-in-law). Apart from playing an important role in our economy, women do a LOT of unpaid work (which, fortunately or unfortunately, perpetuates the stereotype that women are suppose to be domesticated).

81% of women do some form of domestic work , while 71% of men participate in it. However, looking at the data closely, while 36% of women do more than 15 hours of domestic work each week, only 12% of men do so.

Source: ABS, 2011 Census of Population and Housing

While 34% of women provide some form of child care, only 26% of men do so.

Source: ABS, 2011 Census of Population and Housing

Looking at unpaid assistance to disabled personnels, while 14% of women are involved in taking care of one or more disabled persons, only 9% of men do so.

Putting all these together, we can see that women are generally more involved in unpaid work or working for no monetary benefits. Why do we do so? I have no idea but perhaps just like my mother, we are really committed and dedicated to our family and people around us.

Parenting – Single parent statistics

Following on from the previous point, perhaps something that we don’t often talk about are lone parents. Almost 82% of single parent families are headed by women. Where did all the fathers go?

Source: ABS, 2011 Census of Population and Housing

So why are women important? Statistically, it has been proven that women play a big role in our society at large as well as our homes. It is not to say that we don’t love men or we are sexist. Just looking at the statistics above, we can see that men DO contribute in many ways. Hence, what we are getting at is that both women and men have their place in our society and both sexes should be treated equally, and with respect. Unfortunately, while we are proud that there’s much equality in Australia, it is not so for many other countries, but that’s a topic for another day.

An English professor asked his students to punctuate this sentence: Woman without her man is nothing. A male student suggested: Woman, without her man, is nothing. However, a female student begged to defer and instead wrote: Woman: without her, man is nothing. With that, I wish you all a happy International Women’s Day.

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