The conversation women can’t afford to avoid

Picture a typical Friday night, mums catching up, glass in hand, nibbles on the table. The conversation floats from kids’ antics to work wins, weekend plans and the neighbour’s questionable renovations. Practically nothing is off limits. Except money.

It’s a curious thing. Australian women are more educated and active in the workforce than ever, yet we’re still reluctant to chat openly about our finances. Not with our girlfriends, not between generations, and not early enough to make a difference to our financial futures.

Even as a professional economist, I am more likely to talk about the shoes I covet than how to pay for them. If those of us who live and breathe finance aren’t talking about money, who is?

The latest figures from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency are sobering, showing Australia’s gender pay gap is still above 11 per cent. Women are retiring with less super, are less likely to own their homes, and have lower wealth than men. They are also feeling higher financial stress. In 2024, 23 per cent of Australian women were struggling to meet financial commitments such as paying bills or a mortgage on time, or even going without meals, according to data from The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. That’s nearly one in four. It’s not just a statistic. It’s your sister or friend. Maybe it’s you?

None of this happens in a vacuum. It’s a tangle of behaviour, culture, confidence, and those pivotal decisions that were encouraged, or discouraged. It’s the conversations about money management with boys, that girls weren’t invited to join.

When it comes to business, women are less likely to own their own enterprise than men. When they do, OECD research shows it’s more likely to be in sectors that are characterised by lower profit margins and business survival rates. With less collateral, suddenly the ability to access business loans or scale up is limited too.

The gaps compound quietly over the years. Lower pay now means a smaller super balance later. It also means less borrowing power, which delays buying a home or building wealth. Fast forward a few decades and women are left with fewer choices or without a safety net when things go wrong. By the time many women notice the gap, it is too wide to bridge.

Financial stress is not just a solo burden either. It ripples through the economy. When people feel financially squeezed, they’re less likely to take career risks or switch jobs. The result? Less labour mobility, lower productivity, and more need for public services. The cost is shared by all Australians.

Policy changes are helping. Since July last year, superannuation has been paid on government-funded parental leave, plugging a gap in (mainly) mums’ retirement funds that’s been open far too long. Pay rises in aged care and childcare have started to make a difference to the (mainly) women in these sectors who had been paid very low wages for too long. Enterprise agreement wage increases have also benefited frontline healthcare workers, many of whom are women.

Adding to the wages of those in female-dominated industries is useful, but it is also expensive, and there are limits to how much the government can top things up. Raising early childhood and care workers’ wages is estimated to cost $3.6 billion over the last two years according to the bill enacting it. Pay increases due to the Aged Care Work Value Case are likely to cost nearly $18 billion over the coming decade, according to the 2025-26 Budget.

Given Australia’s constrained fiscal position and other structural spending pressures in defence, health and climate management, other policy levers need to be considered to boost women’s financial independence.

Take the relatively cheap idea of evening up super for girls just starting their careers. Under current rules, many under-18s miss out on super unless they work at least 30 hours a week for one employer. This means many teenage girls working part-time in retail and hospitality get nothing, while their male peers in full-time apprenticeships start growing their super straight away. Small differences today can make thousands of dollars difference in later years.

And let’s improve financial literacy. In every age group, women do not score as highly on questions about interest rates, inflation and asset diversification as men. As Professor Alison Preston, a prolific researcher from the University of Western Australia points out, the gap is widest for young women starting out and for older women, especially widows. That lack of confidence influences financial decision-making, from saving to investing and planning for retirement.

Improving financial literacy isn’t about telling women off for not paying attention to compound interest lessons at school; it’s about making sure existing inequalities are eradicated so that they don’t do more damage. OECD data shows that 15-year-old girls in Norway, Malaysia and UAE score better on financial literacy than boys. There is no justification for Australia’s gender divide.

So, what can we women do to secure our own finances? First step: get curious! Know what you earn, how much you are taxed, what you owe, and what you aim to build over time. Log into your super account and understand how it’s invested and how much you are paying in insurance. Ask questions about the suitability of this. Many companies’ HR departments or super funds have free resources to help.

Whether a woman is in a partnership or not, she should not outsource financial understanding. Sharing a life is great. Outsourcing understanding? There’s no place for that.

Policymakers need to continue to advance equity measures, bosses should even up the pay scales and anyone with a young woman in their life should encourage personal financial management.

At your next Friday drinks, put finance on the table.

Cherelle Murphy is chief economist for Oceania at the major accounting firm EY.

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