Women - and Superannuation !

It is a fact of life that women get a raw deal when it comes to retirement.   On average, men retire with a Superannuation payment of $ 198,000 - women with $ 112,000.   There are many reasons for this.  Women earn less than men and their working career is usually interrupted by having children.   There are plans to increase the " Superannuation guarantee " for both sexes to twelve percent by 2019-20, but that still ignores what can only be called " the forgotten women ".

Superannuation only applies to those who hold down a job and are part of the work force.  There are still many women who never receive a pay check from an employer in their whole life.

The " working woman " was a phenomenon that appeared after the end of the second world war.  Before that, when a couple married the husband became the "bread winner " and the woman became " the housewife ".   His job was to earn a living and hers was to raise the children and maintain the home.

Women lived longer lives than men - and still do.   A deceased husband automatically conferred the term " widow " on the woman, and she was entitled to support by the " Widow's pension " for the rest of her years.

How different is the regime today.   Such a woman presenting at Centrelink is no longer regarded as a " widow ".    She is an " unemployed " , to be fitted with a " Job Search " stipend and asked to jump through hoops presenting evidence of job searches at regular intervals to maintain even that small amount of sustenance - which is considerably less than the aged pension.

There are still a large number of women who have never worked in industry to earn superannuation - and eventually they appear in the figures as the seventy percent of pensioners who are single women.

Amongst them will be those women who have stayed at home to care for a child with a disability, and those who have provided unpaid and unrecorded help to a husband running a small business -  and there are still a pool of men out there who hold the belief that a woman's place is in the home -  and oppose any concept of a " working wife ".

These women are conveniently dropped from the statistics.   We now live in a world where women who have never had a job are simply " the unemployed " - and even if Superannuation delivers a real living wage by 2019-20 - it's benefit will pass them by.

This seems to be an issues the feminists and the political parties choose to ignore !