Alex Joiner, chief economist at IFM Investors, has published some terrific charts on Twitter (X) showing the massive rise in female labour force participation over the past decade.
The first chart from Joiner shows that the rise in Australia’s participation rate since 2015 has been dominated by females:
Female participation has risen by 2.29% since January 2015, whereas male participation has risen by only 0.21%.
The following chart shows that the rise in female participation has come across all age groups:
By contrast, only participation for older men has increased in recent years, whereas in prime age men it has fallen across the decades.
Alex Joiner asked the pertinent question: “While we celebrate and facilitate more women in the labour force should we worry about the men dropping out?”
Presumably, the rise in female participation has been driven by the boom in healthcare & social assistance jobs, which are dominated by females.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in February 2020, the healthcare & social assistance industry has added 487,300 jobs, one-third of all jobs created across the economy:
There were 2,272,000 healthcare & social assistance jobs in Australia as at May 2024, comprising 16% of all jobs:
This was up from 1,453,000 healthcare & social assistance jobs is February 2015, which comprised 12% of all jobs in Australia.
The ageing population alongside ongoing spending on the NDIS and aged care should see jobs in the healthcare & social assistance industry continue to grow strongly.
As a result, female labour force participation should continue to rise.
