Has progress stalled on gender equality at work?

(Press-News.org) New research published in The Economic and Labour Relations Review, a UNSW-based journal, found there’s still much more to do to improve today’s working conditions for women across the world.

The collection offers what its guest editors – Dr Yuvisthi Naidoo from the Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney and Honorary Associate Professor Anne Junor from the School of Business, UNSW Canberra – describe as a ‘necessary stocktake’ of how paid and unpaid work continues to both enable and limit women’s safety, wellbeing and economic power.

“Overall, this collection addresses emerging and enduring issues with which women are grappling in their daily lives,” Dr Naidoo says.

“We haven't really achieved the gender equality we had hoped for.

“So, we must ask honestly how much progress has been made on gender equality in paid and unpaid work and then recognise where we’ve failed to reach the milestones we expected.”

Global shifts The themed collection comes amid rapid change in the global labour market – from the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), to worsening climate impacts, to the rollback of diversity and inclusion policies in the United States.

Together, the guest editors say, these forces expose how fragile the gains made in workplace gender equality are, especially as neoliberal policies dilute empowerment and equality agendas.

“Climate shocks, pandemics, wars, technological disruption and political backlash rarely land evenly,” Dr Junor says.

“They expose who bears risk, who absorbs unpaid labour – and whose work is treated as marginal until it collapses entirely.”

The unequal impact of climate change on women’s work is covered by several studies in the collection. These found women in developing regions experience increased workloads, reduced economic security and heightened exposure to violence as environmental crises intensify. In these cases, they often don’t have control over how work or resources are reorganised in response.

“Climate change isn’t just an environmental issue,” Dr Junor says.

“It fundamentally reshapes who does work, under what conditions – and with what protections.

“Those impacts are deeply gendered.”

The research doesn’t frame women as passive victims but suggests work be reorganised to support prevention rather than perpetual recovery.

AI enters the chat The collection also contains an examination of the effects of technological change – particularly the rapid uptake of AI.

While AI has the potential to reduce drudgery and expand flexibility, the research suggests it will displace or devalue work performed by women unless gender equity is deliberately built into how the technology is designed and governed.

“If large numbers of low-skill jobs disappear into automation, the consequences won’t be evenly distributed,” says the journal’s Editor in Chief Dr Diana Kelly, an Honorary Principal Fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the School of Business, UNSW Canberra.   

“At the same time, technology can be a tool for hope – but only if power and bargaining are part of the conversation.”

Dr Junor says according to the 2025 gender snapshot for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 27.6% of women’s employment, compared with 21.1% of men’s, is exposed to job loss through generative AI.

She also says several articles in the collection focus on work that remains systematically undervalued despite being essential to economic functioning. These include traditionally feminised roles such as healthcare receptionists, informal care work and unpaid reproductive labour such as breastfeeding.

“Even teaching as a profession is characterised by serious overwork and outright violence,” Dr Junor says.

Evidence-based policies The research highlights gendered violence – which includes rape, genocide and domestic violence – as a persistent barrier to workforce participation.

An Australian study in the issue found the introduction of universal paid family and domestic violence leave delivers net benefits to employers as well as workers.

The editors say this is a rare example of policy aligning with evidence.

“Gendered violence directly affects women’s capacity to work, to stay healthy and to support their families,” Dr Naidoo says.

“Recognising that in workplace policy is not optional, it’s foundational.”

Decades to build, moments to undo The collection situates these findings within a broader political context, including the recent dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion frameworks by the Trump administration.

The guest editors warn that the sudden withdrawal of institutional support for gender equality in one of the world’s largest economies will have global consequences for safety, opportunity and voice – particularly for women and LGBTQI+ workers. 

They emphasise that now, more than ever, the research and normative role of the United Nations is crucial.

Dr Kelly says the collection represents an important contribution at a critical moment for gender equality.

“You can’t assume progress is linear, or permanent. The global diversity of articles in the themed collection shows that gains can be rolled back very quickly,” she says.

Although the journal is based at UNSW, the global scope reflects the international nature of both the labour market and the challenges facing women at work.

“This wasn’t about producing an Australian-only conversation,” Dr Kelly says.

“The issues we’re dealing with don’t stop at borders.

“The conditions shaping women’s work are global – but so are the lessons.”

More work to be done While the collection does not include fieldwork from war zones, it is written with the awareness of women’s work under conditions of displacement, genocide and survival – recognising women not as war victims, but as key agents of crisis prevention, peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction.

Across the different contexts, the research insists on recognising women are fundamental to maintaining economies, families and communities under extreme strain.

The editors also point to a recent hopeful sign in Australia: a revaluing of direct care work, though noting that so far the revaluing is limited to jobs where direct care is a large part of the role.

The second part of the collection will be published in the coming months. This will provide analyses of old and new ways in which gender relations are reproduced through segregated training systems and chatbots, as well as through women’s unrecognised work in households, communities and informal economies.

Together, both collections challenge narrow ideas of productivity and focus attention on the structural conditions required for gender equality – the conditions under which work is organised, recognised and rewarded.

The publications follow a recent First Nations-themed issue of the journal, underscoring how gender, work and colonial histories cannot be disentangled.

“Gender equality isn’t a side issue. It sits at the centre of how economies function and how societies survive,” Dr Naidoo says.

“Work alone has not delivered the empowerment we were promised. If we want different outcomes, we must rethink how work is organised, valued and protected – not just who participates in it.”

END