Australia has a gender problem. Despite social, economic and political reform aimed at improving opportunities for women, gender gaps are increasing and Australia is falling behind other countries.

The World Economic Forum currently places Australia 24th among 146 countries, down from 15th in 2006. At the current rate of change, the forum suggests it will take more than 130 years to achieve gender equality globally.

Australia has taken important steps forward in some areas, while progress in other areas remains painfully slow. So how far have we come since 2000, and how much further do we have to go?

The good stuff

There are now more women in the labour market, in parliament, and leading large companies than at any other time.

Over the past 25 years, there have been major social and political milestones that indicate progress.

These include the appointment of Australia’s first female governor-general in 2008 and prime minister in 2010, the introduction of universal paid parental leave in 2011, a high-profile inquiry into workplace sexual harassment in 2020, and new legislation requiring the public reporting of gender pay gaps in 2023.

Timeline of equality milestones

• 2000

  Child Care Benefit introduced, subsidising cost of children for eligible families

• 2008

  First female Governor-General (Dame Quentin Bryce)

• 2010

  First female Prime Minister elected (Julia Gillard)
  
  First Aboriginal woman from Australia elected to UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (Megan Davis)
  
  Australia’s first national paid parental leave scheme

• 2012

  Julia Gillard misogyny speech
  
  Workplace Gender Equality Act becomes law, Workplace Gender Equality Agency established

• 2013

  Dad or Partner Pay Leave commenced

• 2016

  First Indigenous woman elected to House of Representatives (Linda Burney)

• 2017

  Launch of Women’s Australian Football League
  
  #metoo movement spreads globally to draw attention to sexual harassment and assault

• 2020

  Respect@Work National Inquiry into sexual harassment in the Australian workplace chaired by Kate Jenkins released.

• 2021

  Grace Tame named Australian of the Year for her advocacy in sexual violence/harassment campaigns
  
  Independent review into Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces launched

• 2022

  National plan to end violence against women is finalised

• 2023

  Closing the Gender Pay Gap Bill passes parliament

• 2024

  Superannuation on government-funded paid parental leave from July 1, 2025
  
  Parental leave to be increased to 26 weeks from July 2026.

There are, however, other areas where progress is agonisingly slow.

Violence and financial insecurity

Women are more likely to be in casual and part-time employment than men. This is part of the reason women retire with about half the superannuation savings of men.

This is also linked to financial insecurity later in life. Older women are among the fastest-growing groups of people experiencing homelessness.

The situation for First Nations women is even more severe. The most recent Closing the Gap report indicates First Nations women and children are 33 times more likely to be hospitalised due to violence compared with non-Indigenous women.

They are also seven times more likely to die from family violence.

Improving outcomes for Indigenous women and children requires tackling the long-term effects of colonisation, removal from Country, the Stolen Generations, incarceration and intergenerational trauma. This means challenging not only gender inequality but also racism, discrimination and violence.

At work, the latest data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency suggests the gender pay gap is narrowing, with 56% of organisations reporting improvements.

On average, though, the pay gap is still substantial at 21.8% with women earning only 78 cents for every $1 earned by men. This totals an average yearly shortfall of $28,425.

There are also some notable organisations where the gender pay gap has widened.

The burden of unpaid work

Another measure of inequality that has proved stubbornly slow to change is women’s unequal responsibilities for unpaid domestic and care work.

Without real change in gender divisions of time spent on unpaid housework and care, our capacity to move towards equality in pay gaps and employment is very limited.

Australian women undertake almost 70% of unpaid household labour. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics time use data show that of those who participate in domestic labour, women spend an average of 4.13 hours per day on unpaid domestic and care work, compared with men’s 2.14 hours.

This gap equates to more than a third of a full-time job. If we add up all work (domestic, care and paid), mothers have the longest working week by about 10 hours. This has changed very little over time.

These charts, based on analyses of data from the Households, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) study, show what drives this gap.

Women respond to increased demand for care and domestic work by doing more, while men do not. Parenthood significantly increases the time women spend on unpaid care and housework, while also reducing their time in employment.

Men increase their time in unpaid care after a birth, but the jump is minor compared with women, and there is no change to men’s employment hours.

Not surprisingly given these patterns, parenthood is associated with substantial declines in women’s employment hours, earnings, career progression, and mental health and wellbeing.

The way forward

Current policy priorities primarily incentivise women to remain in employment, while continuing to undertake a disproportionate share of unpaid family work, through moving to part-time employment or making use of other forms of workplace flexibility. This approach focuses on “fixing” women rather than on the structural roots of the problem.

There is limited financial or cultural encouragement for men to step out of employment for care work, or reduce their hours, despite the introduction of a two-week Dad and Partner Pay scheme in 2013 and more recent changes to expand support and access.

Fathers who wish to be more actively involved in care and family life face significant financial barriers, with current schemes only covering a basic wage. If one member of the family has to take time out or reduce their hours, it usually makes financial sense for this to be a woman, given the gender earning gap.

The benefits of enabling men to share care work will not only be improvements for women, but will also improve family relationships and outcomes for children.

Research shows relationship conflict declines when men do more at home. Time spent with fathers has been found to be especially beneficial for children’s cognitive development.

Fixing the gender problem is not just about helping women. It’s good for everyone.

Gender inequality costs the Australian economy $225 billion annually, or 12% of gross domestic product.

Globally, the World Bank estimates gender inequality costs US$160.2 trillion. We can’t afford to slip further behind or to take more than a century to fix the problem.

This piece is part of a series on how Australia has changed since the year 2000. You can read other pieces in the series here.

Janeen Baxter, Director, ARC Life Course Centre and ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellow, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ironically, Mark Zuckerberg’s attempts to muzzle his former employee, Sarah Wynn-Williams, once director of global public policy at Meta, seem to have created a bestseller.

While Meta’s legal action successfully prevented Wynn-Williams (who worked there from 2011–17) from promoting her memoir, Careless People, her publisher has continued to promote it without her.

In the week of its release, the book sold 60,000 copies in the United States. In the United Kingdom, it sold 1,000 copies a day for the first three days.

“This early success is a triumph against Meta’s attempt to stop the publication of this book,” Joanna Prior, CEO of publisher Pan Macmillan, told the Guardian last week.

The court order that prevents Wynn-Williams from promoting her memoir may also prevent her from responding to requests from lawmakers in several countries to discuss her time at the company, formerly known as Facebook, and “issues of public concern”, her lawyers believe.

Requests have come from members of the US Congress, the parliament of the UK, the parliament of the European Union and other sources, reports CNN.

This comes as Zuckerberg, the founder, chairman and CEO of Meta, has committed the company, as Trump’s second term begins, to “free expression”. “Too much harmless content” is being censored, he says. In practice, this means getting rid of fact-checkers, in favour of a Community Notes program like the one on X, which Zuckerberg cites as a model.

Meta claims Wynn-Williams, a former diplomat born in New Zealand who convinced the company to create her global position, has broken a non-disparagement agreement: signed, it says, after she was dismissed for poor performance. Last week, it called the book

a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives.

A true insider account

Last year, tech journalist Kara Swisher, in her memoir Burn Book, summed up Zuckerberg as “one of the most carelessly dangerous men in the history of technology” – interestingly, given this memoir’s title. She also referred to Facebook as “anti-social media”.

There have been other books about the company too, such as Facebook: the Inside Story by tech journalist Steven Levy in 2020 and An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by journalists Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang in 2021.

Some of the company’s misdeeds were discussed in these books. But whereas they are based on interviews with unnamed sources, Wynn-Williams, a senior insider, has put her name to them. She refers to the protagonists by their first names, reflecting the rapport they once shared.

From shark attack to Facebook

Careless People starts with Wynn-Williams’ story of narrowly surviving a shark attack as a child, despite the complacency of her family and the local doctor. This may be to indicate her strength and resolve. Or perhaps it is a metaphor for the viciousness and indifference she would later encounter at Facebook.

She was initially a big fan of the company, which she saw as a potential force for good. An example of the good work of Facebook in its early days was a randomised control experiment before the 2010 US midterm elections. Some subscribers were sent a message at the top of their newsfeed encouraging them to vote, with a link to polling places and an “I voted” button they could click. This led to an additional 340,000 voters.

Every employee joining Facebook was given a Little Red Book written by Zuckerberg. As Wynn-Williams comments, the book represents “core principles from the supreme leader” who she calls “another MZ channeling his own peculiar form of Maoist zeal”.

Over time, Wynn-Williams’ admiration for Zuckerberg would wane. Her book is also rather unflattering about Sheryl Sandberg, Zuckerberg’s then deputy. The Lean In author is described as drawing people in “like moths to a flame” and expecting female staff to spend evenings helping to promote her book. This was particularly galling, as her book was about empowering women in the workplace.

Sandberg was such a demanding boss, Wynn-Williams was sending her talking points for a meeting at Davos while giving birth. Her doctor was saying: “you should be pushing – but not pushing ‘send’!”

Losing faith and breaking things

Wynn-Williams started to question her faith in Facebook (which changed its name to Meta in 2021) when she realised parents working there did not allow their own teens to have mobile phones. “These executives understand the real damage their product inflicts on young minds,” she writes.

In 2017, an internal memo revealed Facebook was offering advertisers the opportunity to target teenagers when their posts revealed low self esteem. For example, beauty products could be targeted to young women when they deleted a selfie. The company was increasingly adding features that were “addictive by design”, as they sought to maximise engagement at all costs.

The company was adopting an aggressive stance towards traditional media. Zuckerberg attacked one of his staff for “compromising with a dying industry rather than dominating it, crushing it”.

In its drive for global domination, Facebook thought, in the words of one senior colleague, that “the first billion users are the easy billion”. Beyond that, there were the technical problems of expanding into countries with low or poor internet coverage. There were also ethical questions about collaborating with autocratic governments.

Wynn-Williams was perturbed when Facebook told China it could help “promote safe and secure social order”.

A United Nations investigator described how Facebook played a critical role in spreading hatred of Rohingya and Muslims within Myanmar. In 2018, the chairman of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar told reporters that Facebook “substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict” in the public, including “hate speech”.

She also worried about the role Facebook played in the first election of Donald Trump, in 2016. It allowed the Trump campaign to target misinformation to people it would most likely influence, she writes. The campaign also used it to discourage groups less attracted to Trump from voting. She was disgusted when Zuckerberg, rather than being upset about this, admired “the ingenuity” of Trump’s campaign.

After a meeting with President Barack Obama, Zuckerberg was furious at being accused, accurately, of not taking seriously the problem of untrue stories being widely promoted.

The author warns that, unlike the global leaders he increasingly mixed with, Zuckerberg (now aged 40) could stay in his current position “for another fifty years”. His potential longevity is compared to Queen Elizabeth II.

At one stage, Zuckerberg seemed to be musing about a presidential run. Unlike Elon Musk, Zuckerberg was born in the US, so is eligible. But as Levy put it in his book, “no country on Earth has a population as big as Facebook; the presidency would be a step down”.

Unanswered questions

Wynn-Williams feels this emphasis on maximising profits at all costs is unnecessary. Had they wished, the senior people at the company could have been incredibly rich while still displaying some basic human decency.

Meta’s famous slogan is “move fast and break things”. But increasingly, Wynn-Williams concluded one of the things being broken was community health.

The book is easy to read and the author writes engagingly. But unanswered questions remain. Readers may wonder why the author stayed at Meta as long as she did once she developed misgivings about its impact.

She mentions her serious health issues: she feared losing her health insurance. But surely she had been on a large salary package and could afford to look after herself. She may have been in denial, unwilling to admit her initial admiration for Zuckerberg had been misplaced. Her husband’s explanation was she suffered from Stockholm syndrome.

The book would be a more useful reference if it had a bibliography and an index. But it does reveal some important insights about the attitudes of some careless –but very powerful – people.

John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Silicosis is an incurable but entirely preventable lung disease. It has only one cause: breathing in too much silica dust. This is a risk in several industries, including tunnelling, stone masonry and construction.

Just last week, ABC reported that 13 workers from tunnelling projects in Sydney have been diagnosed with silicosis. It’s yet another reminder that current diagnostic methods are limited. They often detect the disease only after the lungs already have significant damage.

Our new study, published in the Journal of Breath Research, provides the latest results on a breath test for detecting silicosis powered by artificial intelligence (AI). It’s non-invasive and measures dozens of molecules to identify silicosis in just minutes.

The test we’ve developed achieved over 90% accuracy in differentiating silicosis patients from healthy individuals. This is better than traditional lung function tests.

While our test is yet to be trialled in real-world clinics, our results so far suggest breath testing could become a crucial tool in workplace health screening. Early detection would prevent suffering and disease progression, and reduce healthcare costs.

Silicosis is a growing problem – but hard to detect

Currently, more workers in New South Wales, elsewhere in Australia and internationally are being diagnosed with silicosis at younger ages. The Australian government has responded by banning engineered stone, but that doesn’t address ongoing risks in other industries.

Patients with silicosis often describe a feeling like they are slowly being strangled, with every breath becoming more difficult over time. In advanced stages, silicosis can be fatal unless patients can access a lung transplant.

The only way to stop the progression of silicosis is removing affected workers from further silica exposure. This is why diagnosing patients in the early stages – before irreversible lung damage occurs – is critical.

However, this isn’t easy to achieve. Lung function testing and chest X-rays only identify the problem once irreversible lung damage has occurred. In some cases, patients also need CT scans and invasive biopsy to confirm diagnosis. But CT scans, although much higher resolution, also rely on visible signs of silicosis.

And these methods are costly and take time, making it harder to easily screen the thousands of workers who could be at risk.

This is where breath testing comes in.

How breath tests can detect disease

Human breath contains hundreds of volatile organic compounds – small gas molecules that come from metabolic processes in the body, as well as the environment.

The composition of these molecules changes in response to physiological conditions like disease. However, volatile organic compounds are often present in extremely low concentrations – we need highly sensitive technology to detect them reliably.

Our team has developed tools that can detect volatile organic compounds at concentrations as low as parts per trillion. This is equivalent to detecting a single drop of liquid diluted in multiple Olympic-sized swimming pools.

This level of sensitivity allows us to identify very small biochemical changes in breath. AI is key to this approach. Our machine learning model analyses breath samples to tell apart healthy individuals and those with silicosis.

This builds on our previous work using AI to analyse blood plasma for early Parkinson’s disease detection with high accuracy and interpretability, which allows us to determine the chemical features that contribute the most to model accuracy. Interpretability refers to the ability to understand and explain how the AI model arrives at its predictions, providing insights into which data inputs are most important.

Now, we have applied similar methods to breath analysis. Thanks to the sensitivity of our test, we could potentially detect silicosis at very early stages.

How well does it work?

In our new study, the breath test was trialled on 31 silicosis patients and 60 healthy controls. The AI-powered model successfully distinguished silicosis cases with over 90% accuracy.

The test takes less than five minutes per sample, making it feasible for large-scale health screening. Additionally, the test doesn’t require subjects to fast or undergo any special preparation beforehand.

An important question in breath analysis is whether external factors, such as diet or smoking, influence test results. Our study included smokers and non-smokers in both silicosis and healthy control groups, and the test maintained high accuracy.

Our results show great promise, but there are challenges to overcome. The test relies on highly sensitive instrumentation that, while compact (less than a cubic metre), still requires technical expertise to operate.

Currently, breath samples are collected in clinics and transported to a lab for analysis. We hope future iterations could allow for testing in workplace settings, creating routine screening programs. Further validation in larger, diverse worker populations is also necessary before full implementation.

The next phase of research will involve refining the AI model and expanding real-world testing to thousands of silica-exposed workers who might be at risk.

While routine medical evaluations will still be necessary for at-risk workers, the addition of breath analysis could enable more continuous monitoring than what is currently practical. It could help detect silicosis earlier, before the symptoms become irreversible, reducing long-term health risks.

Acknowledgements: Aruvi Thiruvarudchelvan and Jeff Gordon also contributed to this research.

William Alexander Donald, Professor of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney; Deborah Yates, Conjoint Professor, Medicine & Health, UNSW Sydney, and Merryn Baker, PhD Candidate in Analytical Chemistry, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Roblox is one of the world’s most popular online platforms for children, offering a variety of “experiences” including games and virtual spaces. Most of the experiences are free, but offer upgrades, bonuses and random items in exchange for cash.

What do kids make of it? In new research, we interviewed 22 children aged seven to 14 (and their parents) from November 2023 to July 2024. Some 18 of the 22 played Roblox.

In the interviews, we gave children an A$20 debit card to spend however they liked, to help us understand children’s decision-making around spending. While four children purchased non-digital items with their debit card (such as bicycle parts, toys and lollies), 12 children made purchases in Roblox.

We found children greatly value their Roblox purchases – but complain of “scary” and complex transactions, describe random reward systems as “child gambling”, and talk of “scams” and “cash grabs”, with the platform’s inflexible refund policy providing little recourse.

What is Roblox?

Created in 2006, Roblox bills itself as “the ultimate virtual universe that lets you create, share experiences with friends, and be anything you can imagine”. There are 380 million monthly active users globally.

Around 42% of Roblox players are under 13 years old. In 2024, a study found Australian players aged four to 18 spent an average 137 minutes a day on it.

Roblox has come under fire in recent years, particularly for the prevalence of grooming and child abuse on the platform. Despite parental controls, many feel that it’s still not doing enough to protect children.

Much of Roblox’s US$3.6 billion revenue in 2024 was generated via in-game microtransactions, particularly through purchases of its virtual currency Robux.

Free to play – but plenty to pay for

It’s free to play Roblox. But Roblox and Roblox creators (people who make the platform’s “experiences”) make money via in-game purchases.

In Roblox experiences, players can purchase all sorts of things – cosmetic items to change the appearance of player avatars, functional items to use in games, and passes which give access to games or VIP experiences.

Some Roblox games also offer random reward mechanics such as lootboxes, which offer players a chance-based outcome or prize (sometimes via monetary purchases).

Lootboxes were banned for users under 15 in Australia in 2024. However, we found many of Roblox’s most popular games still have random reward mechanics for sale to accounts under 15 years of age.

In response to questions from The Conversation, a Roblox spokesperson wrote:

As a user-generated content platform, we provide our developer community with tools, information and guidelines that apply to aspects of gameplay within their games and experiences, including the recent classification update relating to paid random items. We take action on reports of developers not following guidelines or not using our tools properly to meet local compliance requirements.

Concerns about children’s digital game spending often focus on the idea that engaging with random reward mechanics might later lead to problem gambling.

While this remains the subject of ongoing research, our research shows Roblox’s spending features already harm children now. Children already feel misled or deceived.

Random rewards and ‘child gambling’

Many of Roblox’s most popular games, such as Adopt Me!, Blox Fruits and Pet Simulator 99, include random reward features. Players can purchase items of random rarity, and can often use or trade these items with other players.

One child in our study explained that playing these games is “literally just child gambling”.

Random reward mechanics are confusing for children who may not have a strong understanding of statistics or risk. This caused conflict in the families we spoke to, when children were disappointed or upset by not receiving a “good” reward.

Our research echoes earlier work identifying harms to children from monetised random reward systems.

‘Scary’ virtual currencies

Roblox also uses virtual currencies, which must be purchased using “real” currency. For instance, A$8.49 or US$5.00 will purchase 400 Robux to spend in games.

Some popular Roblox games then have their own virtual currency. Players must first convert real-world money into Robux, then convert the Robux into a game’s currency of “diamonds” or “gems”.

Some children we spoke to had sophisticated ways to handle these conversions – such as online Robux calculators or mental maths. However, other children struggled.

An 11-year-old described navigating nested virtual currencies as “scary”. A 13-year-old, when asked how much they thought Robux cost in Australian dollars, said, “I can’t even begin to grasp that.”

Virtual currencies make it difficult for children to discern the true price of items they want to buy in digital games. This leads to children spending more than they realise in games – something that concerns them.

Children referred to many of these in-game spending features and outcomes as “scams”, “tricks” and “cash grabs”. Although children value their in-game purchases, and parents use in-game spending to teach values around saving and spending money responsibly, these features ultimately harm children.

Current protections are not enough

Digital games have demonstrated benefits for childrens’s education, social lives and identity development. Children also value the items they purchase in digital games. However, efforts to make money from games aimed at children may have significant financial and emotional impact.

Our research does not suggest monetisation features should be barred from children’s games. But our findings indicate that policy regarding children’s digital safety should try to minimise harm to children as a result of their digital spending.

In particular, we conclude that monetised random reward mechanics and virtual currencies are not appropriate in children’s games.

Other countries have struggled to regulate lootboxes effectively. Current legislation, such as the Australian classification changes introduced last September, which ban lootboxes for players under 15, is not fit for purpose. Roblox is currently rated PG on Google Play store and 12+ on the Apple App Store, despite many of its most popular games including paid chance-based content.

Our interviews also found that parents feel lost navigating the complexities of these games, and are extremely anxious about how their children are being monetised.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has argued that the way forward for children’s safety online is “safety by design”. In this approach, digital service providers must design their services with the safety of users as a top priority.

In our conversations with children, we found this is not currently the case – but could be a good starting point.

Taylor Hardwick, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney and Marcus Carter, Professor in Human-Computer Interaction, ARC Future Fellow, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In Australia, it’s estimated almost one in five boys (18.8%) experience child sexual abuse. And at least one in 16 men (6.1%) experience sexual violence after age 15.

However, many boys and men don’t tell others about these experiences. Studies show men are less likely to disclose sexual abuse and assaults than women.

It also takes boys and men longer to first disclose sexual abuse or assaults. On average, men wait 21 years before telling anyone about being abused.

This is a problem because talking to others is often an important part of understanding and recovering from these traumatic experiences. When boys and men don’t discuss these experiences, it risks their mental health problems and isolation becoming worse and they don’t get the support they need.

We wanted to understand what prevents boys and men from telling others about sexual abuse and assaults (or “sexual trauma”). So we conducted a systematic review, where we pooled together evidence from a range of studies on the topic.

We found 69 relevant studies, which included more than 10,500 boys and men who had experienced sexual trauma from around the world. Studies were published in 23 countries across six continents, with most studies from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Two studies were published in Australia.

Our new findings offer clues as to how we can break down the barriers preventing men and boys from discussing sexual trauma.

Upending masculine identities

We found across countries and cultures, boys’ and men’s sexual trauma affected their masculine identities. This included feeling as though they are not “real men”, or that they’re weak for having been targeted and assaulted.

In one study, a participant explained:

Sexual abuse to a man is an abuse against his manhood as well.

Almost universally, boys and men suffered intense feelings of shame and guilt about being victimised, and many blamed themselves for years to decades.

Many boys and men said they were worried others would think they were gay if they disclosed being abused or assaulted. This harmful stereotype reflects widespread homophobic attitudes as well as mistaken beliefs about survivors of abuse and assaults.

Sexual abuse against boys and men has been long been overlooked, dismissed and misunderstood. The taboo nature of the issue was felt by participants. As a therapist who supported male survivors of abuse said in one study:

We don’t have a cultural place for men as victims.

LGBTQIA+ men face additional barriers to disclosure. Some experienced distress surrounding concerns abuse or assaults somehow cause, or contribute to, their sexualities. Many also reported receiving unsupportive and homophobic responses when they disclosed abuse and assaults to others. This includes their stories being minimised and dismissed, or suggestions they must have consented given their attraction to other men.

Stigma if they do tell

In many cases, boys and men who tried to tell others about their sexual trauma were met with stigmatising and unhelpful responses. Some were blamed, told they were making it up, or even mocked.

Others were discouraged from speaking out about their experiences again. In some countries, people tell boys and men not to talk about being abused or assaulted because this is seen as bringing shame on themselves and their families.

Boys and men who were assaulted by women were often told their experiences can’t be classified as abuse or assaults, or aren’t bad enough to warrant support.

Understanding why men don’t talk

Many of these barriers to disclosure are linked to harmful myths about sexual abuse and assaults among boys and men. These include mistaken beliefs that men are not abused or assaulted, and that only gay men are abused or assaulted.

What’s more, many people believe experiencing sexual abuse or assaults is at odds with socially-held ideas about how men “should” behave: for example, constantly demonstrating physical strength, dominance, self-reliance and toughness.

These strict ideas about what it means to be a man appear to prevent many boys and men from disclosing sexual trauma, and impact how others respond when they do disclose.

It can also mean boys and men try to bury their difficulties after sexual trauma because they feel they’re expected to be unemotional and cope with their problems independently.

What can we do better?

We know having experienced sexual trauma is closely linked to significant mental health problems in boys and men. These include substance abuse and addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and even suicide.

Receiving unsupportive and stigmatising responses when they try to seek help only makes these issues worse, and adds to cycles of silence and shame.

We must break down barriers that stop boys and men disclosing these traumatic experiences. Doing so could save lives.

Helping boys and men disclose sexual trauma isn’t just about encouraging them to come forward. We need to make sure other people are prepared to respond safely when they choose to speak up.

There are many ways to raise awareness of the fact sexual abuse and assault happens to boys and men. For example, television shows such as Baby Reindeer helped put this issue at the forefront of conversation. Public health campaigns that explicitly bring boys and men into discussions about sexual trauma can also be helpful.

We also need to do more to make sure boys and men who experience sexual trauma have suitable places to go for support. Australia has some services doing vital work in this space, such as the Survivors & Mates Support Network. However, more funding and support is crucial so men across the country have safe spaces to discuss and recover from their experiences.

The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

Vita Pilkington, Research Fellow, PhD Candidate in men's experiences of sexual trauma, The University of Melbourne; Sarah Bendall, Professorial Fellow in Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, and Zac Seidler, Associate Professor, Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Labor government used this week’s budget to announce it plans to ban non-compete agreements for employees on less than A$175,000 per year, a move that will affect about 3 million Australian workers.

Describing them as “unfair”, a media release by federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers said non‑compete clauses “are holding back Australian workers from switching to better, higher‑paying jobs”. Banning non-compete clauses could lift the wages of affected workers by up to 4%, the government has said.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry quickly called the measure “heavy-handed”, arguing that very few employees, according to businesses, turn down employment due to non-compete clauses.

However, research I did with colleagues from Melbourne and Monash universities showed very few employees signing a new job contract ever think about the end of the relationship and what might happen after.

Workers often accept non-compete clauses with little understanding or regard for their practical implications.

What the law currently says

The current law says contractual clauses that stop departing workers from taking a new job in their preferred line of work, often for long periods of time, are – in principle – unenforceable.

That is, however, unless a court says a particular non-compete clause is “reasonably required” to protect a “legitimate interest”.

Therein lies the problem: it is hard to predict when, where or under what circumstances a court will find a particular clause is “reasonably required”.

Our research concluded this uncertainty favoured employers with greater nous and resources.

These employers have the advantage over employees, who are rarely willing or able to go to court arguing their non-compete clause is invalid.

This has a chilling effect on the mobility of employees. In other words, these clauses make it harder for workers to change jobs.

That’s detrimental to labour market competition and can hold back knowledge-sharing and economic growth.

Global efforts to ban non-compete clauses

In California, non-compete clauses have long been banned. Many economists have identified this as among the key reasons for the success of the Californian knowledge economy. This example also featured in a submission I made (with researcher Caitlyn Douglas) to a 2024 Treasury review into non-compete clauses in Australia.

US research from 2021 also found non-compete clauses can hinder labour mobility. They can impede fundamental freedoms such as freedom of employment and freedom of general competition.

In 2024, under President Biden, the US Federal Trade Commission banned non-competes clauses across the US.

However, the ban has been blocked due to legal challenges in the US Federal Court. It’s also been reported the Trump administration may kill off these reforms altogether.

The UK government proposed in 2023 limiting non-competes to a maximum of three months.

Holding employees back

Unlike in some countries, Australian law does not require employers to compensate their ex-employee for loss of income during their non-compete period.

This means that if workers comply and do not work in the field they’re most skilled for, they will take a serious financial hit for months or more.

This is another detrimental effect of non-compete clauses. They really hurt if the worker in question is lower paid and has very specific skills (such as hairdressers or dental assistants).

In that respect, Labor’s mooted ban on such clauses for employees on less than $175,000 is well conceived.

Courts will usually only enforce a non-compete clause if its terms are reasonable to protect a legitimate interest, such as trade secrets an employee has learned during their employment.

However, it’s mostly higher-ranked employees that have access to really significant trade secrets, such as technical information, confidential business plans or pricing structures.

Higher paid employees are also more often the “public face of the business”. A court might decide it’s fair to say such workers can’t leave and the next day turn up as the main face of a competing business.

And the new government proposal won’t leave employers without any recourse against employees who take their genuine trade secrets and pass them on to their new employers. They will still be able to sue for breach of confidence.

Challenges for reform

The proposed reforms are well supported by authoritative legal and economic research.

The federal government will have to consider carefully how to make sure the prohibition cannot be easily circumvented.

And they’ll have to ensure these reforms don’t make it more likely judges will find restraints valid for those on more than A$175,000. Labour and knowledge mobility remain crucially important for them too.

Another key challenge will be ensuring a ban doesn’t encourage practices or clauses restricting competition to emerge or become too prevalent.

That could include “garden leave” clauses. These give a departing employee a long notice period, during which they are paid but do not work and are isolated from their employment (and instead “doing the gardening” at home).

The risk is that if employers can no longer include non-compete clauses in contracts, they might use long garden leave provisions more often.

Although it is good that “garden leave” employees get paid during that period (unlike during a non-compete term), they are still isolated from their work, stagnating in their skills and unable to move to new employment.

William van Caenegem, Professor of Law, Bond University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.