International Women's Day

The #OlderWomenCount program was launched in 2022 on International Women's Day (IWD), a global focus women's achievements and gender inequalities. We believe that celebrating older women's contributions is a critical step in creating a culture where Older Women Count.

​Our mission is to ensure #OlderWomenCount in every family, community, institution, policy, celebration and strategy - every day of the year. The inaugural IWD events are shared below. 

Older Women Dancing 

In 2023 we partnered with artist Dr Deborah Wood to record a message to older women, this uplifting video has been viewed 8000+ times (check link below). We also hosted a webinar, developed a checklist on inclusion of older women and profiled the achievements of older women. Check out the links below. 

Thankyou to our webinar presenters: Janet Bromley, Yorta Yorta Artist and First Nations Art Officer City of Greater Bendigo; Dr Deborah Wood, artist; Debra Nicholl, CEO of Elder Rights Advocacy; Suzanne Phoenix, Photos Punctuate My Life; Yumi Lee, CEO of Older Women’s Network NSW and Dr Catherine Barrett, Founder and CEO Celebrate Ageing. 
  • Campaign partner: special thanks to Elder Rights Advocacy ​
  • ​Checklist: download the #OlderWomenCount Checklist (here) ​

2022: Break the Ageism Bias

Our inaugural IWD event drew on the global theme of Break the Bias; with a call to break the ageism and sexism biases that older women experience. Artist Suzanne Phoenix worked with graphic designer Wuthipol Ujathammarat to develop our logo. For the past 10 years Suzanne has curated a photographic exhibition exploring what IWD means to a broad range of cis and trans women and gender diverse people (here). Suzanne's work has been hung in the National Portrait Gallery (here). Thanks to Plakit for distributing posters across Victoria, NSW and Canberra. We asked community members to help us find the posters and share photographs of them on social media with hashtag #OlderWomenCount (images below).

Inequalities for older women

Older women make valuable contributions to our society as leaders, CEOs, academics, carers, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, neighbours, colleagues and friends. Despite this older women are devalued and experience significant disadvantage at the intersections of ageism and sexism and inequalities include: 
  • Older women are the lowest income earning family group (here)
  • 758,000 older people are unpaid carers - 67% of them are women (here), who are twice as likely to report low wellbeing than the broader community (here)
  • 34% of single older women live in poverty (here)
  • 60% of older women leave paid work with no super (here) and women with super have 28% less than men (link)
  • 60% of older women rely entirely on old age pension (here)
  • 40% increase in homelessness for older women (here)
  • Older women are more likely to experience workplace discrimination (here)
  • 28 older women (55+) were killed in family violence homicides in 2023 (link)
  • 14% of older people experience elder abuse – victims are more likely to be women (link)
  • 23% of women aged 60 years+ have experienced physical or intimate partner violence (link)
  • Older women are more likely to be sexually assaulted (here).

Launch partners

A big thankyou to the partners of our inaugural IWD event The Older Women's Network NSW and photographer Suzanne Phoenix. 
Dr Catherine Barrett, ​CEO Celebrate Ageing Ltd
Yumi Lee, CEO Older Women's Network NSW
Suzanne Phoenix
​(photo Theresa Harrison)

In the Media

Thankyou to the journalists who covered the #OlderWomenCount launch - you are helping us to make change: 

More information 

For more information about the Older Women Count program go to the webpage (here) or contact us using the details below.