Positive Signs for Gender Equality in Australia - Building Gender Balanced Business

• While the Australian gender gap shows little sign of disappearing (clocking in in the latest survey at at least A$13,500 a year for managers), there are signs of change, Maxine McKew declares.

• More politicians are women (and paid the same as their male counterparts), including the first female premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, notes McKew, who is the Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in the Australian government.

• Alas, the private sector lags behind. “[O]ur managerial culture isn’t quite managing change,” McKew writes in The Punch. But the member of Parliament for Bennelong sees exceptions.

• Ikea agreed in July 2009 to give employees 26 weeks of paid parental leave to full-time and part-time employees after two years of service.

• Women at the law firm Blake Dawson arranged and were allowed to redesign their jobs to share workloads during pregnancies and offer flexible hours for childcare.

• McKew concludes, “When I hear stories like these, I really wonder how managers can still be dragging the chain.”

McKew’s comments