Women Are Responsible For rising interest rates

WOMEN were almost entirely responsible for the growth in employment last month, as rising interest rates, falling tax rates and attractive wages encouraged more of them to take up paid work.Of the 20,100 new jobs created in December all but 400 went to women, which lowered the female unemployment rate from 4.9 per cent to 4.4 per cent. The male jobless rate stood at 4.2 per cent, unchanged for the month.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s the female jobless rate was stuck stubbornly above the male rate. It took a recession in the early 1990s to reverse the situation, and then it was only because male unemployment spiralled so high.

But since then a healthy economy has improved job prospects for men and women, closing the gap between their unemployment rates.

The chief economist at CommSec, Craig James, said rising interest rates were one of several factors behind the increase in working women.

"No doubt there will be some in the community who have been hit hard by the rising interest rates, rising petrol prices and rising housing costs and have no choice but to have two breadwinners in the family."

But a change in employer attitudes was another likely reason, Mr James said, and the general labour shortage meant employers had to offer more flexible options to attract female employees, including shorter or unusual hours.

Technological changes, such as the spread of mobile phones and faster personal computers, were also making it easier for women to work from home and combine paid and unpaid domestic work.

A demographer at the Australian National University, Peter McDonald, said the reasons for more women working were simple: "One, they want to and two, they want the money. Certainly with increases in education and experience in the labour force before they have children, women are in general pretty keen to return to the workforce when they can."

An economist at ANZ, Riki Polygenis, said the surge in female employment last month could be due to the busy Christmas shopping period.

"There are more women usually employed in the retail sector, so that could be a contributing factor," she said.

Successive income tax cuts could also be prompting more women to take up work.

"It's more attractive for some women to go back to work, even if they're not in financial difficulty."

An economist at Westpac, Anthony Thompson, said there had been considerable volatility in the job numbers since the start of the previous government's "welfare to work" changes, which forced more single parents to look for work from the middle of last year.

He said the fall in the female unemployment rate appeared "unprecedented" and it could be expected to rise again. However, the long-term trend towards increasing participation of women in the workforce could be expected to continue, he said.

In the late 1970s just over 40 per cent of women were judged to be participating in the workforce, by either looking for or doing paid work. Today that number is 58.1 per cent.