It used Seymour as a case study to understand and reframe narratives about people, places and policy, particularly regarding women’s financial wellbeing in regional areas.
Senior research officer Margaret Kabare spoke to several women and several stakeholders that provided services in Seymour to determine what women struggled with within rural areas.
“We wanted to know their perspectives around women’s life in Seymour,” she said.
During the launch, authors Dina Bowman and Dr Kabare said the people they interviewed struggled with housing and child care.
“It’s a real challenge,” Dr Bowman said.
“The affordability of child care is an issue, but the availability, too.”
Seymour has one long-standing daycare service, but another is set to open in the next few years.
This lack of options has meant women sometimes needed to take their kids to work or take time off.
“Even when it comes to employment, if the jobs are available, women only were able to get casual jobs or part-time,” Dr Kabare said.
She said an issue the researchers found in Seymour was that many women were not paid enough, which limited their ability to build long-term financial foundations for themselves and their families.
To further help women’s economic wellbeing, the brotherhood developed SEED.
“We don’t focus on employment ... it (the report) recognises building on our understanding of the multidimensional nature of women’s economic security,” Dr Bowman said.
“It focuses on financial wellbeing first.”
According to Dr Bowman, women tended to have a “care penalty”.
It meant that some women needed to leave the workforce to care for their family, which could affect them when they retired.
“(In general) Men tend to have a more steady path through work,” Dr Bowman said.
“The challenge comes in when they (women) don’t have the means to leave their partners because they don’t have income,” Dr Kabare said.
Dr Kabare said some women ended up living in tents or couldn’t leave domestic violence situations because they didn’t have the economic means to sustain themselves after being out of the workforce.
Dr Bowman said she doubted much would change in the long run if these challenges continued.
“What we were hoping is to act as a catalyst for change,” she said.
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