Madeline Hislop, March 8, 2024

This International Women’s Day, UN Women wants us to focus on how we can create equal access for women and girls to education, employment pathways and financial services and literacy. 

The theme for IWD is ‘Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress’ and it centres women’s  economic empowerment as a core component to creating a gender equal world. As CEO of UN Women Australia Simone Clarke has pointed out, there is a valuable return on investing in women and girls. Not only does it benefit women in a personal sense, it can help create stronger communities and economies. 

“When women are empowered to have their own voice, agency, and full participation in economic decision-making, everyone benefits,” Clarke said. 

Just last week, the gender pay gaps of 5000 organisations were exposed by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, firmly bringing the inequality that exists for women in the workforce to the fore.

It highlights that, if we are to break down the barriers holding women back from reaching their potential, we need to start transforming many of the underlying structures that exist in workplaces, homes and wider society.