VET will only deliver prosperity and productivity if it is equitable

With a combined 90 years of experience in VET, skills and gender equality, Gender Equity Victoria, Women in Adult and Vocational Education (WAVE) and the Gender Equity Accredited Training Project (WHV) have submitted two submissions in last month - the Productivity Commission Review of the National Skills Agreement, and Victorian Government's Skills for Victoria's Growing Economy -that recommend reforms to skills policy that enable gender equity in VET.

The recent announcement of the "JobTrainer Skills Package" combined with the ongoing story of how this pandemic is impacting women and their employment makes the need for a gender equitable skills system even more vital.

Vocational education and training is a vital part of the way we drive, build and empower our economy and our society. There are not too many people I know that debate this. Testament to this was yesterday's announcement of the "JobTrainer Skills Package" which seeks to increase employment opportunities and drive retention of workers in jobs "in areas of identified need".

Our question is, will the package - which still needs to be signed onto by the State and Territories - identify the right skill needs to support, that drives employment for women.

The latest job figures tell us why this is important.

Full time female employment continues to be low (down by 5.2% compared to men 3.8% since February) Gender Equity Victoria's own analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on women's employment shows that 55% of the unemployed are women and, for those still in paid work, 11.5% of women have reduced their hours compared to 7.5% of men. Further, "More women than men work as casuals with less than 12 months continuous employment making them ineligible for JobKeeper payments."

So why does this matter - because VET is linked to jobs. Has been since it all started, and so much time is taken by many people - educators, managers, policy experts etc - to work out how to make this link work well.

But there is kink in the link.

A segregated labour force and a segregated skills system - entrenched inequity

Our submissions highlight that as our job market is highly segregated by gender, so to is our skills system. And this segregation entrenches inequity - it limits potential, it limits prosperity and it limits productivity. The headlines are that:

• More women in the workforce increases GDP and productivity
• Women are paid less than men - although that gap is closing
• Australia has a uniquely segregated labour market - the segregation is horizontal and vertical
• Women dominate caring and service industries men dominate trade and technical sectors
• More men than women occupy positions of leadership

The segregation is mirrored in our skill system - and, if we do agree of the link between our skill pathways and employment - which Australia does, then we need to see the link between the inequality above, and how we reinforce it in our skills and training activity.

On this the headlines are:

• Women dominate care and service education programs, men technical and trade skill programs
• Men dominate leadership positions in the VET industry itself
• More men than women participate in apprenticeship and traineeship programs similarly more females than males enrol in VET programs not linked to an apprentice/trainee and more men than women enrol in training package programs.
• Depending upon labour force type more women than men who are employed will participate in VET, whereas more men than women will participate in VET if they are unemployed.
• It also appears that women prefer to learn vocational skills outside of the public provider - there are higher participation rates in community education providers (with overall less participation by women in VET, than men across all provider types)

Why?

The detail is that this entrenched segregation is reinforced by the persistent gender inequality in our society.

It is (as years of evidence shows) driven by the stereotypes and norms that we apply to gender. It is persistent, structural and systemic and applies to women and men.

If we really are going to address the impacts of the pandemic on our economy, on our society and on our unemployment rate, we really need to start applying a gender lens to how we make decisions about labour and skills forecasting, and our skills system as a whole. And we need to do this in the broader context of an emerging labour market and economy post COVID.

How

Our recommendations to both the Victorian Government review into VET and, the Productivity Commission into the National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development (NASWD) is two fold:

A. Act systemically by

• Making targets based on a framework of long term reform of inequality in our labour markets through the VET sector,
• improve methods for assessing skill shortages that take into account the prevalence of gender stereotypes and norms in Australian workforce's,
• evaluate outcomes of VET policy from an equity perspective including using gender-dis-aggregated data which can also be published to report on progress .

B. Create cultural change we recommend that:

• specific resources should be made available to drive reform and coordinate efforts of gender equity across the VET sector. These resources can act and work in partnership with existing leadership to create change (Nationally the COAG Advisory Panel on Reducing Violence Against Women and their Children and the Office for Women, and in Victoria, the incoming Gender Equality Commissioner)
• a VET workforce development strategy should also be built to strengthen and build the capacity and capability of the VET workforce to address the gender impact of skills development and the benefits of equitable approaches to promoting and building skills across communities

If we are going to use our VET system to improve the unemployment rate we really need to apply a gender lens to our assumptions, processes and systems to make sure that the investment that is being made works.

What we are suggesting is certainly not small and it will take time - but here is the good news, the evidence from two distinct sectors - gender equality and vocational education shows that this can work. Further, their are structures already in place that can be leveraged to undertake this work.

We can address the barriers that entrench inequality in our skills system and through this jobs and productivity.

Kit McMahon is Chair of Gender Equity Victoria and has over two decades worth of executive experience in skills and gender.

The submissions were a collaboration between GENVIC, Linda Simon (National Convenor) at WAVE and Debra Parker (Workforce Development Manager) at Women's Health Victoria

The submissions referred to can be found on the Gender Equity Victoria website - https://www.genvic.org.au/resources/gen-vic-submissions/