Landmark research brings workplace equality within reach for women

Professors Baird and Cooper are co-directors of the University’s Women, Work and Leadership Research Group, a national trailblazer in identifying the building blocks needed to achieve gender equality in the workplace.

The group’s unique research spans occupations, industries and organisational hierarchy to understand the everyday working realities of women and then translate those findings into positive workplace change.

The recent publication of their Australian Women’s Working Futures Survey provided a watershed moment in workplace gender equality. It was the first time women aged between 16 and 40 years – in a nationally representative cohort – were asked about their own working futures.

The survey challenges entrenched bias that shapes current workforce policy and offers surprising insights into what women want in the workplace for the long term. As Professor Baird points out, economists have traditionally based their workforce models (which have a major influence on policy) on analysing past behaviour and patterns, with the assumption that lifelong careers should be reserved for men only.  

Previously, research has taken the same approach, analysing data that focuses on past and present realities. The survey results confirm a seismic shift in career ambitions for Gen Y women and millennials.

“Women are saying they are going to work until they are older than 60. That is a huge shift,” Professor Baird, the University’s Professor of Gender and Employment Relations, says.

“Prior to that, women left work or weren’t thinking about staying at work. So all our policies are built around men staying in the workplace for the long term, but not around women doing that.”