National Women's Alliance: Women in the Workplace

From ABC News:

The National Women's Alliance is calling on the federal and state governments to remove the barriers for women wanting to return to work after caring for children or others.

A new report called Barriers to Women's Employment found that women going back to work do not have the same access to job finding services as unemployed people on welfare.

Report author Marie Coleman says while more women are working now than 60 years ago, many are not eligible for assistance with fees to retrain and also struggle with inflexible work hours and child care.

She says governments are not making enough of an effort to meet the specific needs of those women.

"I would think the political party that went to the next election with a really well-tailored program that would provide for before and after school [care], and school holiday programs, would be greeted with thunderous applause by most Australian working women," she said.