For the first time in a decade, a sluggish Australian economy has halted women's financial growth as rising interest rates have hurt female employment. The Financy Women's Index, which gauges women's economic advancement and the amount of time it will take Australia to achieve gender equality, fell 0.1 points to 76.2 out of 100 in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Independent economist Nicki Hutley stated in the study that was made public on Monday that "the drop is modest, but even the tiniest backward step on this path is a huge policy failure. The economic stimulus provided by Covid in 2022 didn't assist women as much as it did males, which is a criticism of both those particular policies and more general ones that promote gender equality.

According to Financy, a company that develops software aimed at assisting businesses with improving performance on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the weak job market coupled with higher interest rates appears to have weighed on the index and slowed down the process of reducing gender disparities in employment and underemployment. The employment sub-index decreased from 71.9 to 71.5 points.

While salaries increased little in January, Australia's unemployment rate increased to an eight-month high of 3.7% from 3.5%, indicating that the Reserve Bank's efforts to control inflation are starting to bear fruit.

Women in Australia earned 22.8% less than men on average last year, stalling progress on the country's gender pay gap. On the World Gender Pay Gap Index, which is headed by Iceland, Finland, Norway, and New Zealand, Australia comes in at number 43.

The gender pay gap statistics, which are presently released at the industry level, will also be revealed at the level of specific businesses with 100 or more employees, according to legislation that was introduced last month by the center-left Labor government.

An overview of gender equality in seven areas, including unpaid labour, education, compensation, and board leadership, is provided by the Financy Women's Index. That is corroborated by Deloitte Access Economics's observations.

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