Women demand equality: Against women's poverty and for better care!

Women demand equality: Against women's poverty and for better care!

In the run-up to the upcoming Women's Day on Saturday, renowned representatives of the Chamber of Labor and Caritas denounced serious injustices in the Austrian labor market. Renate Anderl, President of the Chamber of Labor, and Nora Tödtling-Musenbichler from Caritas are calling for urgent legal measures to combat **female poverty**, which, according to them, is the result of deep-rooted social inequalities. Female workers undertake almost twice as much unpaid care work, which is one of the main factors behind the persistent gender pay gap of around 18 percent. In addition, women's pensions are paid on average 40 percent less than men's, which is exacerbated by, among other things, a lack of adequate childcare. Two thirds of those seeking help seek help in the Caritas social counseling centers, with the vast majority being women, many of them single parents.

Demands for equality

At a press conference in Vienna, the two presidents called for urgently needed reforms in child care and a fair distribution of unpaid care work to be implemented. “Women must be able to participate equally in the labor market,” emphasized Tödtling-Musenbichler, while Anderl called for mandatory wage transparency for companies with 25 or more employees. Such a step would be essential to reduce wage discrimination that has existed for equivalent qualifications and work. The planned EU directive on wage transparency must be implemented quickly in order to clearly combat this discrimination.

The urgent need to improve the social conditions for women is reinforced by the serious crises of recent years. According to the two representatives, it is a high priority for the incoming federal government to put women's poverty on the agenda and to implement preventive and acute measures. The situation is particularly critical since two thirds of unpaid work in Austria is carried out by women, and this makes the systemic problems even clearer. Tödtling-Musenbichler and Anderl called for a reform of social welfare and an increase in minimum income in order to prevent acute emergencies. “What is missing is the political will,” concluded Anderl.

These demands and the warnings about the negative consequences of structural inequalities illustrate the urgent need for action to improve the realities of women's lives, as do the reports from vienna.at and katholisch.at prove.