women's policy action tank blog posts
2023
Raising children in the lucky country: Understanding the income penalty and poverty at childbirth
Violence against disabled women: Findings from the Royal Commission
Single parents and post-separation families: Challenges and opportunities in times of crisis
The society keeps the score: (Re)framing trauma as a political experience
If it walks and talks like credit: behind the regulation of Buy Now Pay Later
LinkedIn’s “career break” feature highlights how society devalues unpaid care work
2022
Summer reading from Power to Persuade / the Women’s Policy Action Tank
Buy Now Pay Later is not the same as lay-by
The sun is setting on archaic abortion laws in the West
Employee financial wellbeing for women in Australia
In Anti-Poverty Week here are 5 big ideas for Australia to halve child poverty by 2030
How health justice partnerships transform responses to family, domestic, and sexual violence
Women in the ministry and shadow ministry
What to make of the diversity in Australia's 47th parliament
Reimagining welfare to mitigate violence against women
Evidence for welfare reform: Generosity may have unforeseen benefits for women and children
Draw a policy: Accessible family violence policies can be life-changing
Dear Prime Minister: Single mothers are asking for some hope
Factoring in women: Trends in the gender composition of state and territory parliaments
The Election Is Over. Now the Work of Implementing a Women’s Plan Begins
Women have spoken: new government urged to prioritise structural reform
Election 2022: The ‘persisterhood’ changes the game
Building Inclusive Police Organisations: How Do Women Experience Gender Equity Policies?
Solomon Islands-China security pact: A feminist foreign policy answer
Tackling wicked problems from the inside out
How can we help young people to overcome adversity and look to the future?
For women, the road to ‘unfreedom’ is paved with violence
Power in representation: Trends in the gender composition of Australian ministries
Ms. Representation: Trends in the gender composition of the Australian parliament
To Quota or Not to Quota: Women’s political representation needs better support
Scrapping compulsory income management: Six options for investing in true change
Sexual violence and Covid-19: all silent on the home front
Why the gender pay gap never closes…
A ‘hierarchy of rights’ will leave many without recourse from discrimination
The social safety net as a complex system failure for women
Behind the rosy unemployment rate, the health sector is under strain
2021
The Unequal Burden of Australian Pension Reform on low-income women
Tethered through Centrelink: Couple payment policies work against women’s safety
Understanding the links between women, violence and poverty for Anti-Poverty Week
Serious about women’s safety? It requires broad policy reform
Debt collection practices and women’s safety
The gendered nature of JobSeeker
Explainer: Why JobSeeker is below the poverty line, and why it matters for gender equality
How social security works against women’s safety
Data collection, femicides and policy change: Lessons from Mexico
Do you know what you don’t know? Aboriginal people on the problem of ignorance
Unpacking Australia's gender pay gap
How ‘Neutral’ are Gender-Neutral Parental Leave Policies?
Accounting for care: The Intergenerational Report fails to value parenting
When work becomes a masculinity contest
Working from home: Opportunities but also risks for supporting gender equality
Building Australian infrastructure: What works for women?
The case for reproductive and menstrual health leave
Beyond the rhetoric: What will the Federal Budget really mean for gender equality?
Is the Coalition solving their ‘woman problem’? The Federal budget tells the true story
Poverty and its effects on school-aged children: Understanding the consequences of policy choices
Gender disparities in STEM research: A case study of cardiovascular researchers in Australia
He said, she said: Investigating the Christian Porter Case
Women’s financial security will be further eroded by weakening consumer credit protections
The gender-based data gap in Australian medical research is a problem for everybody
Changing cultural norms is important – but it’s not a panacea for eliminating violence against women
Basic Income, Gender and Human Rights: reinforcing inequalities or transformative action?
2020
Pandemic impacts on women: Insights from community law
Ramping up punitive mechanisms in employment services: Single mothers are the canary in the coalmine
Silver linings: What are the ‘keepers’ from 2020?
Building back better: An intersectional feminist approach to COVID-19 recovery
Going virtual: Digital social service delivery to vulnerable families
Unraveling ‘complexity’: Keeping all women safe from violence (part 3)
Women’s physical security cannot be achieved without securing their financial independence (part 2)
A multi-disciplinary response to family violence - building communities of action (part 1)
Trampolines not traps: Listening to single mothers about what needs to change
Reducing gender inequality and boosting the economy: Fiscal policy after COVID-19
The ‘herstory’ of superannuation: Uncovering the discriminatory traps that disadvantage women
Dear Senators: For many of us the pandemic is a blessing
Re-imagining childcare for a effective, equitable, resilient economic recovery
Getting serious about holistic recovery requires gender-responsive budgeting
The kids are not all right: Young women and the impacts of COVID-19
Providing the big picture on gender equality and suicide rates
550 reasons to smile: Why single mothers are so happy these days
An economist’s view: In a ‘she-cession,’ we can’t reply on ‘he-covery’ policy fixes
COVID-19 and mental health impacts: Women are at greater risk
COVID-19 impacts on domestic and family violence are coming into focus. Urgent action is needed
Young women’s post-pandemic pathways: Is more education really the answer?
How is COVID-19 affecting women recovering from eating disorders?
For single mothers, financial concerns have been top of the list for far too long
Will child care ‘snap back’ from COVID-19?
Holistic responses to economic abuse: Reporting on progress
Pay equity: Valuing our essential services
Covid-19 has ushered in changes to worker’s rights. Women should be worried.
JobKeeper: Who gets it, who doesn’t, and what that means for women
Within these walls: Covid-19 is changing our home life and that provides opportunities
Superannuation and Covid-19: What does early access mean for women?
Undervalued and unseen: Australia’s Covid-19 frontline workforce (part 1)
Learning from Covid-19: Imagining a healthier and more just economy (part 2)
The Covid-19 payment stimulus measures: How will they affect women?
Debt can be a powerful tool for control over women
Women’s safety in a time of quarantine
The gender divide in social inclusion: The unheard story of older women
Generation equality: Reflections on weight stigma and diet culture on International Women’s Day
Feminised services and the gender pay gap: What role for government to support equal pay?
Holding back justice: Co-design, constitutional recognition and collaborators
Compulsory cashless welfare programs harm women and children
Poverty in Australia 2020: What does a gendered analysis reveal?
Imbalance of power: Female high court judges treated as ‘conversational inferiors’
Women in data: time for a manifest-NO
What happens to girls in high school?
Changing cultural norms is important – but it’s not a panacea for eliminating violence against women
2019
Holiday reading - 2019 wrap-up
Tracking intimate partner homicide risk escalation: the Homicide Timeline
Nine months of Royal Commission but women and girls’ mental health is still largely invisible
Potential risks and benefits of using a ‘family violence’ frame
Wage theft, or “Have a go to… get stuffed”
Backlash, gender fatigue and organisational change
What the Productivity Commission has to say about income support and mental health consumers
Is she just more organised? Understanding the gendered labour of synchronisation and scheduling
What does it mean to criminalise coercive control?
Australia falls behind OECD on paid parental leave
Co-operative ageing: Innovative solutions to older women’s precarious housing
Skilled, productive, resilient - what’s going wrong for older women? Lorraine’s story
A long and winding road to nowhere: Older women’s experiences of Newstart
The trouble with girls… and what to do about it
Blunt mechanisms fail to move unemployed people into viable employment
How ParentsNext is harming survivors of trauma
The Inquiry into the Family Law System is a poorly disguised Trojan horse
What behavioural insights can tell us about the inadequacy of Newstart
Quality, not just quantity: How government investment into care work could grow the economy
The mental health impacts of sexualisation, family violence and assault
Invisible women? Migrant workers need feminist solidarity
The bidirectional relationship between financial hardship and women’s mental health
Racial and gender justice for Aboriginal women in prison
Economic inequality can deteriorate women’s mental health
Why a gender lens on mental health is critical
Taking the pulse on men’s parenting and care work: The State of the World’s Fathers
Do the Hustle: How I make ends meet as a single parent
Mitigating the child penalty: Policy problem or social norms?
What do we mean when we talk about ‘gender’ and family violence?
Thanks for asking… Mothers say ParentsNext puts parents last
Mind the gender gap: The hidden data gap in transport
Caring comes at a cost. how about supporting systems that allow carers to work?
As safe as houses? Comparing Liberal and Labor platforms on women’s safety
Apples for apples? Comparing Liberal and Labor platforms on economic security for women
Putting people with disability at the heart of the government agenda
Gender in the 2019-20 Australian aid budget
New study finds family violence is often poorly understood in faith communities
Reading between the lines: How women fare in the Liberal budget documents
Time to work and time to Care: Policy levers to enable gender equality
Caught up in CDP’s punitive web: What remote women have to win (or lose) on May 18
Seen but not heard? Older women want to be consulted in the policy space
Do Parliamentary quotas influence legislation? Lessons from France
Why is the Coalition funding couples counselling in instances of domestic and family violence?
How the Australian budget process is failing women
Creating a crisis for people on income support? Psychology says bad idea
Rethinking justice: The transformative potential of health-justice partnerships
Protecting young women from workplace sexual harassment
The art of helping: Lessons for Australia in taking a mediation approach to forced marriage
Dowry abuse: It’s a growing problem in Australia, but new laws aren’t the answer
Putting mothers last: The economic injustice of ParentsNext
Four ways The Global Commission on the Future of Work can deliver for women in the gig economy
ParentsNext doesn’t get much right - but it could with some meaningful co-design
Australia’s child support system facilitates economic abuse
2018
Happy holidays from the editors (and a bit of reading you may have missed in 2018)
Start of change: Mapping engagement with male perpetrators of violence
We can’t dismantle systems of violence unless we centre Aboriginal women
It’s about time: Time Use Survey returns to make unpaid work visible
The same old story: How Newstart fails single mothers at every turn
Increasing women’s workforce participation: An analysis of the Women’s Economic Security Statement
Snakes and ladders: The experience of single mothers on Welfare to Work
Left behind: Are gender equality measures excluding men?
Learning from feminist approaches to evidence based policy: The case of the conflict Tactics Scale
A woman’s struggle: How our system fails to address discrimination at work
For women and children fleeing violence, timely and effective social security support is vital
Bushfire Safety: What's gender got to do with it?
Forced marriage in Australia: Looking beyond the law
Lessons on child and forced marriage: Reflections on progress towards global eradication
Where's the gender-osity? Women lose as the federal government reduces the aid budget to record lows
Rosie in the Classroom: A 1950's history teacher's gift to young women today
Women, welfare, and a policy of economic abuse
By all means raise the rate, but while we're at it...
Budget 2018/19 - What's in and what's out to support women with disabilities to thrive
Contracted employment services: Obligations placed on single parents fail to help many
Budget 2018/19 - Women in the workforce increasingly isolated & exploited
Rewarding competence - not confidence - offers a step towards equality
Research on gender bias receives less attention than research on other types of bias
A tale of two housing systems: How the Federal budget could support women's housing needs
Economics has a women problem. Here's why you should care
Look beyond Super to close the gender retirement gap
Promoting women's participation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Who wins?
'Citizen Joyce', or the experiences of older single mothers in the welfare system
How a human rights frame can advance better policy for women
Women and children being left behind in Australia's mental health priorities
Australia's response to early and forced marriage: Better, but still lacking
How the 'child penalty' matters for domestic and family violence (and what we can do about it)
2017
Serving up inequality: How gender impacts women's relationship to food
Single mothers and the abattoir: A short review of Job Active positions in Shepparton
Gender segregated work and women's rights: A history of Aboriginal oppression (part 2)
Gender segregated work and women’s rights: A history of Aboriginal oppression (part 1)
Betwixt and between: Girls (and boys) in their 'middle years' need tailored support
We need to address questions of gender in assisted dying
Refugee Women on Nauru: The gendered effects of Australia's asylum seeker detention policies
Advocacy and changemaking: Reflections from the Women's Policy Forum
Parents Vexed? ParentsNext is poorly designed to support mothers into work
Hitting a brick wall: How Welfare to Work could support single mothers (but doesn't)
Precarious work and the health cost to women
Productivity and pressure: Social services get an unhealthy squeeze
Women leaving prison and the impacts of debt
The national tragedy of female incarceration
Indigenous women: Rethinking economic security
Income management and Indigenous women
Out of the shadows: What's next in transforming the Victorian family violence sector?
7 Questions: Why doesn't child support add up?
Making the most of diversity lessons from March for Science Australia
Always on edge: The dangers to female couch surfers and their children
Higher child support doesn't lead to welfare dependency for single mums
When volunteering isn't valued: Welfare to Work and mutual obligation requirements
Single parent support and the feminisation of poverty
Can dads be flexible too? Gendered risks and gendered opportunities to reduce work-family conflict
New Zealand's child support reforms - an opportunity lost
Cuts to Australia's aid budget impacts women
2016
Weighing the cost of welfare to work implementation
A tournament of endurance: Does equal pay mean equal time?
Time to rethink the time policy in Welfare to Work
Networking for Change: The role of the national women's alliances in the women's movement
Australia, ageing, and gendered disadvantage
Working Across Boundaries: How insights from feminist thinking can make us better at collaboration
Micro-Aggressions and the Welfare Card
Why Australian Women over 55 aren't exactly enjoying the time of their lives
Aboriginal Women: We have voice, don't speak for us
Should we be locking people up in prisons at all?
Action and Inaction on Policy that Benfits Women
Supporting carers: political discourse limits women's options at every turn
The deadly consequences of a gender-blind approach to heart disease
Asbestos, Mesothelioma, and the predictive model 'gender gap'
Women at risk during disasters due to poor understanding of gendered differences
The gender pay gap exists due to an incorrect framing of the problem
Bold leadership needed for transformational change
Why the Women's Budget Statement needs to be reintroduced
An "incident" approach to family violence fails both victims and perpetrators
Promoting girls' and women's participation in STEM education and careers
Workplace policies must change to reflect 21st century realities
Women experiencing domestic violence need expert first contact
Playing the woman's card in the US presidential elections
The cost of gender inequality and family violence
It's a matter of trust: The policies we need to restore our faith in politics
The preferably unheard - Women and the Income Support System
Women receive half the level of support through superannuation than their male counterparts