[Forum] On Friday, we learnt that only 43 per cent of Australian women with a VET certificate ever reach the threshold annual income level of $46,620 that would apply for repayment of loans if certificate courses were part of the Commonwealth’s HELP Scheme.
Part-time employment must be a factor.
But no doubt we are also seeing the consequences of many jobs continuing to be identified as typically ‘male’ or ‘female’ ones, where the former has been traditionally well-paid compared with the latter.
That identification expresses itself in recruitment decisions of employers, where assumptions operate regarding the gender of appointees.
In turn, it affects young people’s choice of career, perhaps turning them away from their preference (and probably the one for which they are most suited).
But like all cultural assumptions, they can live on beyond their relevance or truth, becoming handicaps to the best operation of the systems they affect.
Technological developments mean few jobs demand the sort of muscular strength the equivalent positions required decades back and which, as a consequence, precluded most women.
And we know that many men have the fine motor skills and caring qualities that have typified jobs traditionally thought of as female ones.
Let’s call on all Central Coast employers consciously to question their gender-related assumptions when recruiting or taking on apprentices or trainees, so that they accept the best person for the job, not the best man for this one or best woman for that one.
Yes, disproportionate gender representation among applicants will be at play.
But with conscious effort, that will change, both in the gender balance in training courses, and among job applicants.
The Central Coast can become an exemplar to the rest of the country, of a workforce and vocational education provision moving towards gender equality.
Email, Aug 9
S . Hopkins, Tascott