<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/23/the-outlook-for-older-women-in-australia-is-dire-but-no-one-seem-to-care>
"Prior to Covid, women over 55 were already the fastest growing group
among the homeless. Research released in August estimated that 400,000
women over the age of 45 currently face this fate. Women who are in the
private rental market, who are not employed full time and are a sole
parent have a 64% risk of losing the roof over their head. If they have
been homeless before, this risk increases to a staggering 83%! These
figures are grim, but has anyone noticed? Is there an outcry? Does
anyone – apart from the women themselves - actually care?
[…]
The recent budget, touted as all about jobs, did little or nothing to
help. It did nothing to support women’s employment, despite women
workers losing more hours of paid work than men. In September, the ABS
estimated that 61% of all jobs lost since February were lost by women,
and only a third of the jobs that have returned have gone to women.
Lockdowns and working from home has seen many women experience a huge
increase in their hours of unpaid work which, as it always does,
impinges on their ability to return to full-time employment. When
criticised for ignoring the plight of women in the recent budget, the
government loftily claimed it was “gender-blind”, as if not noticing how
much women were struggling was somehow a virtue.
[…]
I don’t want to believe our government is using the pandemic to shove
women, especially mothers, back into the kitchen and back into financial
dependence of their husbands, I really don’t. But when you put it all
together, it’s hard not to reach that conclusion. Whether this is part
of an ideological belief that women should be at home, looking after the
kids, or just an inability to see or care about the fate of 51% of the
population, the long-term consequences for the current generation of
women are dire. Whether they want to think about it or not, younger
women are now facing at least as high a risk of a desperately poor old
age as their mothers and grandmothers did. Not thanks to Covid, but
thanks to government policy."
Via Muse.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
