Women

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Issued by: House of Representatives Liaison & Projects Office, Wednesday 24 September, 2008.

LOOKING AFTER WOMEN’S INTERESTS - PAY EQUITY INQUIRY

The Office for Women is situated in the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and will appear before the House Employment and Workplace Relations Committee in Committee Room 1R3 Parliament House Canberra on Thursday 25 September from 11 am to discuss recent trends in pay equity and possible priority areas.

The Australia Institute would like to bring to your attention an exciting event - 'Inspiring Women at Tilley's' to be held at Tilley's cafe in Lyneham on Monday 25 August at 5:30 until 7pm.

The event features The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for Housing and the Status of Women, in conversation with The Australia Institute Director Professor Barbara Pocock, Director of the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia. The event promises to offer an intriguing insight into issues of work-life balance faced by modern families.

On 13 March 2008, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, the Hon Julia Gillard MP, announced a major review of Australia’s higher education system which will examine and report on the future direction of the higher education sector, its fitness for purpose in meeting the needs of the Australian community and economy and the options for ongoing reform. [From the DEEWR website]

Dear CAPA Women and Supporters

In recent weeks, CAPA has been in contact with the Australian Federation of University Women. AFUW is keen to encourage further ties with CAPA including an exchange of ideas about government policy in the area of women's involvement in higher education.

AFUW is one of 78 member nations of the International Federation of University Women (IFUW), which has consultative status with the United Nations and its specialised agencies, including UNESCO and ECOSOC. AFUW thus has a voice through IFUW on international matters of critical importance to the protection of human rights and the status of women and girls. Members enjoy fellowship and intellectual stimulation by sharing news and views with the international community through the IFUW Triennial Conference and the IFUW Networks (Connections, Advocacy and Young Members) and Forums.

Strong employer demand for workers in short supply has helped boost the salaries of newly qualified postgraduate students in the workforce. Figures released by Graduate Careers Australia show the median salary for postgraduates in full-time work was $60,000 in 2006, up by $1900 on the previous year....

AUSTRALIAN universities "still have a way to go" in improving the intellectual climate for postgraduate researchers, an annual Graduate Careers Australia survey has found.

While postgraduates thought departments had improved efforts to integrate them into the academic community during past year, only 63 per cent felt that the intellectual climate was good overall.

The release of the Postgraduate Destinations 2006 report today by Graduate Careers Australia (GCA) highlights a discrepancy that is true of women in the workforce across the board. The OECD report Education at a Glance, also published this week, points out that women in OECD countries earn between 50% and 80% of what their male counterparts take home even with similar levels of educational attainment.

The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) welcomes the release of The Australian University Student Finances 2006 final report, and supports the call on the part of Universities Australia for practical changes to student income support.