Of course, some women chose to focus on raising their children, but the fact even women who were the household’s main earner seem to take a prolonged pay hit suggests there are other factors preventing women from returning to their full pre-birth income.

A recent report from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency might shed some light here.

The independent government agency found that across all working ages, no more than 50 per cent of women worked full time. It also pointed out that better paid management positions were reserved for full-time workers 90 per cent of the time.

The agency’s director Mary Wooldridge said for many women, working part time was “not a genuine choice”.

It’s probably also no surprise to hear that same report found men out-earned women across all age brackets. The wage gap peaks between ages 55 to 64, when men are twice as likely to be in management than women, and subsequently out earn their female counterparts by 31.9 per cent.

The divergence starts around the age of 35, the agency found. And many millennial women who are nearing that age are currently reaching management positions at equal rates as men, Wooldridge said.

Let’s look closer at that silver lining again.

With a glut of jobs currently on offer (nearly half a million, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics), businesses are having to put significant effort into attracting and retaining staff.

This gives prospective employees a bit more power - not offering two days a week of working from home or flexible hours might send applicants elsewhere. It also means the opportunity for a bit of a pay bump.

But flexible work only suits so many employees or industries. Nurses can hardly attend patients from home, and you can’t get a virtual cup of coffee.

A few things are needed to improve access to work and better pay for women across industries. A report from Chief Executive Women earlier this year said bigger investments in childcare, improved access to paid parental leave and lifting wages in female-dominated industries could bring enough women back into the workforce to fill the equivalent of half a million full-time jobs.

As Chief Executive Women’s president Sam Mostyn said at the time, these changes are worth “hundreds of billions into the economy if you get this right”.

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The government knows getting more women into work is important for the economy - not just now, as businesses scramble to find workers, but into the future so we have the wealth of knowledge and skills to grow productivity.

Women’s work will be front and centre at the September job’s summit. Minister for Finance and Women, Katy Gallagher will have a lot to consider here. One of the government’s key election promises was extending the childcare subsidy to more households in July next year, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the end goal is universal access.

That should include better out-of-hours childcare access for people who work outside normal office hours, including nurses and hospitality workers.

Women have come far during the pandemic thanks to the seismic shift in the way we work. The government, businesses and industries need to find a way to keep some of these changes and improve in other areas if they want to ensure the vast pool of female talent stays in the workforce long into the future.

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