Seymour has formed the case study for a new report, titled Flip It, which seeks to better understand the factors that create better opportunities for women and girls against a backdrop of “persistent disadvantage”.
The report was launched by Victorian Minister for Women Natalie Hutchins at state parliament on Thursday, June 22.
Commissioned by the Brotherhood of St Laurence, the report is part of the broader Sustaining Economic Empowerment and Dignity for Women Project, which saw the establishment of the Women’s Financial Wellbeing Hub in 2020.
Fifteen local women from a range of backgrounds were interviewed alongside seven participants from service providers and community groups for the report.
Senior researcher Margaret Kabare, a co-author of the report, said the interviews provided an insight into how poverty, disadvantage and opportunity were understood in Seymour.
“We know that poverty has a female face. In Australia, women have lower workforce participation rates than men, are more likely to work part time, and have low-paying jobs,” Dr Kabare said.
“Regional women face added challenges caused by underinvestment in social infrastructure, like transport, childcare and public housing, in those areas.”
The report hopes to provide insights that can be used to formulate policy for regional towns across the country.
A town divided
Welfare recipients living “on the hill” or in the “housing commission area” were sometimes characterised as part of the deeply entrench narrative of the “deserving" poor, meaning individual behaviours were deemed the primary cause of poverty by respondents.
Respondents described a generational cycle of poverty and perceived unwillingness to engage in community activities or employment opportunities.
The report highlighted reasons for the perceived lower rates of participation in community groups and employment, including difficulties accessing transport or childcare and previous breeches of trust with service providers.
Barriers to employment
The number of men engaged in full-time employment was double that of women in Seymour.
Disproportionate responsibility for child care, difficulties accessing transport and a lack of accessible, flexible jobs with wages that justify the costs of childcare, if it is available, all feed in to women’s lower rates of workforce participation.
While Seymour has several childcare services, there is just one long day care centre, which according to participants, has “a massive wait list" and shuts at 5.30pm, with late fees that make running late for pick-up after work a heavy financial burden.
Dr Kabare expressed the sentiment that while there was work available in Seymour, the jobs were often not suitable for women’s circumstances.
“What we heard was there was a lot more casual positions, more insecure because once people get those permanent positions in Seymour they tend to stay for a very long time because they are not easy to come by,” Dr Kabare said.
“So younger women, for example, who have skills that are not necessarily suitable for health care and want jobs outside of those areas then, it becomes really difficult for them.
“Also, there is not a lot of opportunities for them to train, if someone wants to be a childhood educator and there is only one centre, there is a limited amount of people they can take to train, so it becomes a challenge.
“Those are some of the intersections we see. People say, ‘oh, get a job’ but then you dig deeper and these are some of the factors that affect whether people can actually work.”
Inadequate services
Interviews described Seymour as a “forgotten town” with a perception that the majority of Mitchell Shire Council investment is focused on the southern end of the shire.
Seymour’s high levels of social housing, lower-than-average incomes, “childcare desert” (according to the Mitchell Institute) and health services “black hole” (according to the Victorian Council of Social Services) all contributed to this perception, the report found.
Dr Kabare said Seymour’s unique position between the two larger hubs of Melbourne and Shepparton meant often it was overlooked as a location for services, as it was presumed individuals would be able to travel to larger towns.
Instead, outreach or “satellite” services are a more prominent feature of the town.
“Some of the challenges have persisted just because of the justifications around where Seymour is located and that makes people feel like challenges will never be addressed because there is nothing you can do about the location,” Dr Kabare said.
“It was almost as if to say areas closer to Melbourne get more funding and that became a feeling of helplessness for service providers and community workers.”
The researchers highlighted that without the “deep knowledge” of the town that comes from established and permanent services, they can struggle to address deeply entrenched challenges.
It noted that when implanted, the Seymour Community Wellbeing Hub will expand residents’ access to integrated healthcare services.
Domestic violence
Barriers to employment influence the prevalence of “old school” gender attitudes in Seymour, the report found.
Adherence to traditional gender roles has been found to be a predictor of higher domestic violence rates in previous studies.
Higher-than-average rates of domestic violence in Seymour were exacerbated by a “mateship culture” protecting perpetrators and “little effort to address men’s behaviours and attitudes”, the report said.
The effects of this violence were exacerbated by inadequate place-based and crisis support for women, with the closest family violence hub located in Shepparton.
Additionally, the intersection between limited affordable housing and persistently high domestic violence rates was clear, and the creation of more affordable housing was recommended.
It’s time to Flip It
How poverty is framed in policy and public discourses has a profound impact on experiences of disadvantage, especially for women.
Dr Bowman said it was time to flip the focus in Seymour and acknowledge the structural and systemic drivers of insecurity, rather than perceived personal failings of women facing financial insecurity.
“Sometimes talking about poverty, it can be naturalised … Once you can tease out what the drivers are then you can address them,” she said.
“Yes, there are challenges, but there are also huge opportunities and advantages in a town like Seymour.”
Despite an awareness of structural barriers such as limited transport, childcare shortages and rigid gender roles, participants in the study often took an approach of deficit blame and attributed poverty and disadvantage, especially in areas of social housing, to individual circumstances.
Dr Bowman and Dr Kabare also contend that to ‘flip it’ requires a re-conception of what female financial wellbeing may look like, away from the narrow metric of employment in an increasingly casualised workforce.
“We are really trying to think about creating opportunities too, rather than just taking advantage of existing opportunities,” Dr Bowman said.
“In the SEED model we recognise that poverty and the flipside, financial security, are multi-dimensional. So, we go through a process where we talk with women about their goals and aspirations ... and then the areas where they want to improve, it’s really tailored to them.
“For many women just getting a job is not going to help their financial wellbeing or security, because of the other challenges, so we need to address the other challenges first.
“It may well be, and the things we are thinking about [with the Women’s Financial Wellbeing Hub], is how can we create opportunities that are more suitable? For example, potentially a social enterprise of some sort, how can we leverage things like social procurement?”
A SEED Community Investment Committee has been established for collaboration with service providers, community groups and local groups to pool expertise to identify priority issues and create solutions for the challenges of women’s economic security.
Recommendations
Recent increased government focus on regional policy requires a gendered lens to recognise the different impacts of policies on women’s and men’s financial wellbeing, the researchers said.
Often, a gender-neutral approach could unintentionally further entrench existing gender disadvantage. Developments in social infrastructure benefit everyone, but without it, women carry a larger burden, Dr Bowman said.
“If you don’t have a gendered lens women will miss out … It’s making sure that if there are opportunities, the enabling conditions are there, like childcare, transport and housing,” she said.
“Having that broader idea; rather than thinking about encouraging a specific industry to come to the town, you may still do that, and it may be good, but having an eye for how it will impact women’s economic security.
“The barriers are created with things like transport, little things like buses and trains lining up … or having proper shelters if you have children … Things like pushing a pram or getting to a doctor’s appointment, how might you do that? Those types of issues that seem small but if you use a gender lens make a big difference.”
In addition to affordable housing and accessible transport, the report recommended a focus on quality, affordable housing and childcare; alongside investment in domestic violence services and men’s behaviour change programs.
The big picture
“We have local people doing things to try and address challenges but some of that is beyond the local level, it has to be linked to the national level and the broader policy level,” Dr Kabare said.
Dr Bowman agreed, saying advocacy at a national level was required for issues such as social security.
“Jobseeker payment is manifestly inadequate … we have people literally just existing on $350 a week,” she said.
Non-compliance penalties and other punitive measures built into Australia’s welfare system have unique implications for mothers of young children.
In the current system, sustainable employment often takes a back seat to “casual, low paid work which provides negligible economic security” the report found.
The report noted the establishment of the Federal Government’s Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce and the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children as cause for hope.
While optimistic for what the future holds for the women of Seymour, Dr Bowman said change was not fast, and persistence was essential.
“A longer-term effort is absolutely required … It takes some investment in time, it takes shift in attitude,” she said.
“Change does happen, it can happen. Look at marriage equality, it might have been unthinkable 30 or 40 years ago.
“It’s not necessarily easy to change attitudes and behaviours … It takes effort and leaders demonstrating the way.”