Rich women a social revolution worth celebrating

The Rich Women List published in Saturday’s AFR Weekend featured 19 female Australian billionaires. The social revolution that began in the 1960s and led to big gains in female workforce participation over the past 50 years is paying dividends by flowing through to wealthy and successful women entrepreneurs.

There is still a gender gap at the top of The Australian Financial Review’s annual Rich List. The male-bias is partly due to a time lag from the days when women’s opportunities were limited, which will hopefully continue to close in a more gender-equal Australia. It is also in part due to the male-dominated explosion of tech wealth, which calls for doing more to encourage currently underrepresented women into STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths – degrees and careers.