Month: May 1993

Women see themselves as better financial managers than men and the older women get the more likely they are to keep their own nestegg in case the man loses everything.

These are among the conclusions of an Australia-New Zealand study of women’s attitude to finances published by Mattingly and Partners, Australian Consolidated Press and Brian Sweeney and Associates.

It shows women have a greater control over household finances than men.

It shows also that women do not trust financial institutions to give them good advice; that they feel they are not taken seriously and they resent it.

The survey was conducted late last year across seven cities and included women of all ages.

The key issues for women were independence and security.

Ninety-eight per cent of the 1108 surveyed thought it important that women are capable of organising their own finances; 86 per cent said women should be financially independent; and 78 per cent said women should have their own accounts.

Mothers’ experiences of dependency influenced opinion. “”Mum never have any money of her own; I’m not going to be like that,” and “”When my Dad shot through Mum was left with nothing,” were two responses.

Older women learn from their own and their friends’ hard knocks. Thirty-six per cent of under 30-year-olds have their own nest egg rising to 57 per cent of those over 46.

Respondents commented: “”His decisions are not always right; I’ve signed papers in the past for deals that have gone wrong; now I would never trust him,” “”I’ve got some inheritances he doesn’t know about,” “”It’s your running-away money.”

Younger, blue collar women are more likely to have “”shooting through money” and not let him know about it. Other women have smaller amounts kept aside “”because he doesn’t look to the future”.

Women take the leading role in finances. 69 per cent prompt discussion of finances; 77 per cent do all the banking; 68 per cent manage the savings and 67 per cent pay all the bills and credit cards. Only 18 per cent had surrendered control over finances to their partner.

Many women do not have a high regard for their partner’s financial ability. 65 per cent sort out the junk mail “”before he sees it”. Respondents said: “”You get to know how to manipulate and read your man” and “”My husband comes up with the ideas; I just talk him out of them.”

And this gem, which provided the title of the report: “”We always discuss things, then I’ll make our minds up.”

The report, called When I’ve Made Our Minds Up, shows how women seek long-term control over finances. “”Plant the thought, let it develop”, “”Planting the seed is a lengthy process”, respondents said.

Eighty per cent thought that women control household spending better than men and 62 per cent thought they could strongly affect their partner’s spending.

More women thought women were better financial organisers and more responsible than men. And nearly a half thought “”men are just hopeless with household money matters”.

“”When they see something they want cost is not important,” a respondent said.

Major financial organisations are not well thought of by women. One respondent said: “”The trouble is most of these places are run by middle-aged men and they’ve no idea what a woman’s life is like.”

Their main concerns were trust, being exploited and being patronised. Women tended to put their trust in people rather than institutions. Eighty two per cent thought attitudes to women in the financial arena needed to improve. More than half thought financial institutions and sales people took them less seriously because they were women.

Ironically, the survey showed that while women had greater control over household finances and spending the institutions controlled by the middle-aged men were reluctant to believe that women could make financial decisions.

However, only 25 per cent said they would prefer a female financial adviser. “”Women can be just as patronising,” one respondent said.

The survey found that women’s views were remarkably similar either side of the Tasman. The cities surveyed were: Adelaide, Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Wellington.

Economic sexual inequality is still rife in Australia, but there is a pattern of improvement which appears likely to continue, as it must if equality is to be achieved.

Female earnings as a ratio of men’s earnings have risen steadily since 1973-74. In the past education has been the key to higher incomes. Now a higher percentage of girls that boys are completing high school and there are more women than men in higher education.

The trends are revealed in Women in Australia which was published yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The 300-page book draws together a raft of statistics on the position of women compared to men in income, work, health, education, leisure, housing and families.
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In general population statistics, some groups of women with special needs stand out.

In August, 1992, there were 1.6 million married women with children, 1.5 million women over 60, 1 million single young women and 2.2 million women living outside major urban areas.

Twenty-one per cent of Victorian women were born in non-English-speaking countries compared to 5 per cent in Tasmania and 8 per cent in Queensland.
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Women do not take part in sport as much as men and one suggested reason was a lack of confidence in their abilities, the ABS book shows.

“”Women have higher rates of participation than men in some areas of leisure activities, e.g. arts and crafts, and entertainment and cultural activities,” it said. “”These tend to be the more passive recreational activities. Discussion papers such as Equity for Women in Sport have suggested that part of the reason why women participate less in active leisure pursuits such as sport is a lack of confidence in their abilities.”
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The gains in women’s life expectancy are off-set by a large increase in the incidence of lung cancer among women, according to the section of health in the ABS book. It shows that women’s life expectancy in Australia passed 80 in 1991.

It is higher than Britain, the US and New Zealand, but lower than Canada France and Japan. Interestingly, Australian male life expectancy is higher in all these countries except Japan.

Life expectancy figures for males and females are converging after a peak of divergence in the 1980s due to higher male heart attacks.
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Women have achieved greater equality in the past decade, but there is a long way to go and the gains are far from secure.

These are the broad conclusions that can be drawn from Women in Australia, a 300-page book of statistics published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday.

Women are still lower paid, with and average of 76.2 per cent of male income, and tend to have the worst jobs. Yet women do far more of the housework (despite increased employment). The bureau estimates the value of unpaid domestic and community work at $151 billion, 68 per cent of it done by women.
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The Real Estate Institute of the ACT welcomed yesterday the ACT Government’s draft planning proposals for North Watson.

The institute’s general manager, Bruno Yvanovich, said the plan would present a better northern gateway to Canberra and be a more efficient use of schools, roads, sewerage and water.

He criticised the narrowly based, extravagant claims by some community groups that the development would put a strain on shops and schools and would cause traffic congestion and lack of open space.
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People who helped Pol Pot and engaged in “”ethnic cleansing” in former Yugoslavia are not covered by Australian war-crimes legislation and should be, according to former war-crimes investigator, Bob Greenwood, QC.

Mr Greenwood said this week that present war-crimes legislation applied only to World War II, and even these investigations had been stopped, leaving unfinished cases, including one involving systematic multiple murders by a Latvian who joined the Germans. The man, in his late 70s, now lives in suburban Melbourne.

The war-crimes legislation should be extended to all conflicts, Mr Greenwood said. He expressed concern that people who engaged in crimes with Pol Pot were resident in Australia or citizens and there was no law to prosecute them. There was some evidence that there were such people in Australia. They could not be extradited to Cambodia because the country was a shambles and there could be no trial, similarly with former Yugoslavia.
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The Latvian is now an Australian citizen and lives in Melbourne.

He will never be prosecuted, though Australian authorities have a great deal of evidence against him. The evidence is that the Latvian joined the German Arajas Kommando squad; that he trained and commanded 100 men who were sent to Minsk to round up and murder Jews. From the middle of 1942 to mid-1943 he took part in the murder of at least 10,000 Jews, who were buried in mass graves outside Minsk.

He now looks like any other other old just another elderly man walking the suburban streets of Melbourne.
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The Federal Government has spent $22.6 million on war-crimes investigation since 1987.

Of that $19.2 million was by the special investigations unit; $2.2 million by the Director of Public Prosecutions and $1.2 million in legal aid to the accused.

There is now only one case before the courts. A trial is expected later this year. After that, there will be no more war crimes trials or investigation by Australian authorities, though there have been calls to change the War Crimes Act to make it apply to all conflicts. At present it applies only to the European theatre of World War II.
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