Frances Crimmins | Early childhood education key to cracking the code of gender pay gap

This week many workplaces will be hosting events to celebrate International Women's Day, your boss may even fork out a lot of money to go to a fancy lunch this International Women's Day.

Not all women who are working will get the opportunity to celebrate, mainly those in the caring sector.

And quite frankly there is not a lot to celebrate when it comes to achieving gender equality, we are still decades away from equality, especially the gender wage gap, currently at 22.8 per cent.

If you work in the caring sector, still the most feminised sector, you are even further behind when it comes to an equal pay packet.

This year at YWCA Canberra, we are presenting the case for equal and increased pay for the early learning education and care sector. Real Value: Early childhood education will focus on the trifold contribution of early childhood educators to our economy, our workforce and the lives of children and explore its role in closing the wage gap.

According to nearly every economist and academic, and a key platform in the Albanese government's economic strategy, the key to increasing women's workforce participation is a universal system for access to childcare.

The Albanese government's cheaper childcare policy, at a cost of $4.5 billion, is estimated to add 37,000 workers, mostly women, to the labour force in the first year and boost gross domestic product by a massive $20 billion a year when fully realised.

Ironically, the early learning education and care sector is the one group of workers who are not seeing any economic benefit to their take home pay.

The sector has the highest occupational gender segregation in Australia with 96.6 per cent of the workforce being female. These women are not only being left behind, but they are also walking away from the sector in droves, because we continue to undervalue the important role these women play in ours and the next generation's future.

We urgently need a government wage intervention, like the one promised to the aged care sector, to correct a historically low wage distortion.

The early learning educator's role is undervalued as it's still viewed as women's work. Some still see it as work that should be unpaid and carried out in the home. I still remember a member of the former government labelling the educators' role as nose and bum wipers.

My point is: why should this group of women have their economic security and their contribution to our country's future economic prosperity at the mercy of all others?

Since 2015, this sector has experienced the failure of three equal remuneration cases presented to the Fair Work Commission.

The children's services award commences with a rate of pay for a qualified certificate III educator of $23.39 per hour and a centre director, role often degree-qualified, starts at $35.17 per hour.

My own experience as a mother wanting to return to full-time work was only possible with both my children attending early learning education centre from nine months old. Now young adults, this centre still pops up in our family conversations as a happy time for our family.

Partly since it was not only an outstanding early learning education centre, but my children also thrived in the care of the amazing women employed at the centre, it was a community that welcomed all children and parents/carers as equal.

Some of our closest friendships, both the children's and adults, were forged at this community-based centre and remain today. I would not have been able to keep my place in the workforce and career progressing if it was not for this centre which provided full-time care and education to my children.

YWCA Canberra owns and operates seven early learning centres, and our biggest challenge is balancing affordability of fees and remunerating staff at above award wages. I will be eagerly looking to the Productivity Commission inquiry into universal childcare and the Albanese policy aspiration of access to low-cost high-quality childcare.

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The first goal on removing barriers to workforce participation will clearly be examining the daily fees charged which vary greatly across the country.

There are many reasons why fees are high, with the most obvious is the commoditisation of childcare, not the wages of women who work in the sector, unlike the male CEO of a ASX-listed company operating over 440 centres on a salary of $2.6 million per year.

What we need to crack the code is bleedingly obvious: pay women equal pay for equal work. If we lifted the wages of these caring sectors pegged to the historical low undervaluing of women's work we will go a long way towards cracking the code on the gender wage gap.

By ensuring we have a valued early learning education and care workforce, who are not just responsible for the early years education of the next generation, we will also crack the code of economic windfall of the Albanese government.