The first full week of September marks the start of Women’s Health Week in Australia; an annual campaign led by Jean Hailes for Women’s Health dedicated to advertising how everyone can get involved in supporting women’s health. For this year’s event, we thought it would be pertinent to explore the competing importance that health and career play in women’s lives, why that is, and what employers can do about it.
For as long as it’s been in our lexicon, the use of the word “career” in conjunction with “women” has always been met with skepticism and resistance, if not outrage and violence. Women’s place in the workplace has always been—and continues to be—a constant struggle. Even to this day, there are industries in which women are still fighting just to get their foot in the door, let alone secure a lasting career. Leadership positions, likewise, continue to be comprised majoritively of men. To make it as a woman in the workplace, therefore, comes only with considerable effort and considerable sacrifice—most often at the expense of their health and wellbeing. And that’s only if they’re lucky enough to get that chance in the first place.
As it stands, women make up the vast majority (70 percent) of part-time workers. Conversely, just 7 percent of managers, 5 percent of key management personnel, and a mere 3 percent of CEOs work part-time—demonstrating just how unattainable leadership positions continue to be for female employees. Even in female-dominated industries, men are overrepresented in positions of authority, and research from the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce shows that women are far more likely to be working in the same jobs they held 35 years ago—indicating a clear lack of upward mobility or career advancement available to them.
What all this suggests, furthermore, is that striving for career advancement as a woman is inherently harmful to their health—a lot of the time, at least. Women aren’t working part-time because they ‘feel like it’; they certainly can’t afford to, anyway. Most, if not all, are working part-time because they have to, whether that’s due to caregiving or domestic duties and a lack of flexible, accommodating full-time work—or simply just a lack of time, bandwidth, or good health to take on full-time work.
As most can probably guess, working mothers are the most likely to be using flexible or part-time work arrangements. Across the board, women are shown to spend 9 more hours than men per week on unpaid caregiving tasks. Now whether they’re opting for part-time work because that’s all they have time for; because they can’t become stay-at-home moms what with Australia’s early childhood education and care (ECEC) being among the most expensive in the world; or because of the inaccessibility of full-time work (for instance: Australia offers not even half the average number of weeks provided by other OECD countries for paid parental leave), varies from one mom to the next, but what unites them all is the truth that switching to full-time employment and/or pursuing higher positions—with the way things are currently set up—comes at a considerable cost to their wellbeing. It cuts into the limited amount of personal time they already lack; it cuts into their time with their young children, and disrupts their caregiving duties; it generates financial stress by pressuring them to seek professional childcare; and it generally adds to their overall stress by adding even more to their plate—not to mention the stress they’re likely to endure as a result of the widespread maternal and gender discrimination that currently plagues the workplace.
And it’s not just mothers who are seemingly forced into part-time work for the sake of their health: research shows that fewer than half of women across all age groups work full-time in Australia. This includes women at the other end of the reproductive stage, as nearly a quarter of menopausal women say they find it difficult to work as a result of both their condition and society’s treatment of it: for some, the ‘bothersome’ symptoms that more than two-thirds of women between the ages of 45 to 64 report are what drive women to pivot to part-time work or to quit the workforce entirely; whereas for others, being undermined by their peers, vilified, or quite literally demoted because of their condition, is to blame for the transition to less or no work. “Pressing on” with their careers, therefore, ultimately becomes having to hide or ignore their health status, and any possible symptoms they may be experiencing. This not only aggravates their condition but puts them at risk of further health consequences—again largely due to the vast amount of stress they must endure to reject their own health needs and fit into an environment that wasn’t made with their interests—let alone health needs—in mind.
Demonstrating the adverse impact that the current work environment has on career-oriented women, research now shows that women are increasingly affected by NCDs commonly associated with overwork and its related behavioural risks. This includes conditions such as coronary artery disease, overweight and obesity, and substance use disorders that are often caused by chronic stress, bad sleep habits, poor diets, and insufficient exercise, and all of which now impact women at alarming rates.
The bottom line: Australian women face a ‘double burden’ of limited career advancement options coupled with the presence of considerable health risks that come with what opportunities are available. This presents a dual challenge for employers, necessitating that they not only create new opportunities for women’s advancement in the workplace, but that they ensure that all opportunities do not come as a detriment to women’s overall health and wellbeing.
Luckily for them, solving one half of the problem can help to solve the other.
When it comes to creating better opportunities for women’s advancement at work, the key element to prioritise is flexibility. Employers need to ensure that promotional opportunities are equally attainable to all employees, regardless of gender, marital status, age, race, or any other characteristic. To do so requires them to shift what they believe constitutes a ‘strong work ethic,’ and to envision new ways for employees to demonstrate their loyalty, commitment, and ability to lead beyond working 40+ hour workweeks, working through illnesses, major life events, time off, and just overall placing work before their personal life.
Because the truth is, ‘good leaders’ are those that create a positive atmosphere for the teams they lead; who model what it means to have a good work-life balance and resilience against stress. Leaders who clearly love what they do, who have the ability to show up to work every day refreshed and energised from the night before, who are in good enough health to be completely present at all times throughout the workday—they’re the ones who consistently achieve the best results for the organisation.
That said, in terms of how employers can create these opportunities for their female staff—and how they can better support their health throughout their progression within the organisation—partnering with a holistic wellbeing solutions provider who can help is their best bet.
By partnering with a provider, employers can tap into the comprehensive expertise of a team of consultants with extensive industry experience and demographic insight to assess employee needs, concerns, and desires; craft a customised upskilling and leadership development strategy based on those findings; and likewise implement an effective wellbeing strategy suited to the needs of one’s particular workforce. They can learn how to engage directly and effectively with employees to discern exactly how they can tailor advancement opportunities and managerial or executive job descriptions to allow all employees a fair and equal chance to pursue them.
Furthermore, by collaborating with a provider, employers can provide female staff with access to a full suite of holistic wellbeing services that can assist them in maintaining good health and work-life balance as they climb the ranks of their organisation. This includes access to in-the-moment and mindfulness-based counselling support to help women manage their stress levels as they take on more responsibilities. It includes access to daily living information services, enhanced legal and financial services, as well as practical support for child, dependent, or eldercare—all of which seek to minimise the burden placed on women to manage both work and family/household tasks and reduce the number of disruptions that financial, familial, or other personal stressors may cause while they’re at work.
And, last but certainly not least, this may include access to wellness coaching and both onsite and virtual training centred around instructing women on how to adopt and maintain healthy lifestyle habits—like getting enough sleep, consuming a nutritious diet, engaging in regular exercise, and maintaining a healthy weight—to sustain them in their pursuit of their professional and personal goals.
As research shows, companies in Australia run the risk of losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year due to the underutilisation of women. Women want to work; they want to apply themselves and push themselves to secure those top spots inside their company. But they don’t want to do so at the expense of their health, or their entire personal lives, for that matter. That said, by prioritising women’s health and wellbeing across leadership and advancement opportunities, employers can strive to boost the participation and representation of women within their organisation; reap the benefits that a greater presence of female staff and leaders engender—notably higher ROIs, greater retention, and improved performance; and create an overall healthier and nurturing environment for all staff.
