The OECD Skills Outlook 2025 confirms what many already know: skills systems are failing not because people lack talent, but because workforce structures ignore care, health, and real-life complexity. The Creative Women’s Association is moving beyond commentary to build the missing infrastructure — transforming skills recognition, creative labour, and economic participation through measurable, standards-based reform.
Category: Women’s Physiology, Anatomy & Cycles
Evidence-informed knowledge of the female body — from anatomy to hormones, menstrual cycles, and the foundations of women’s health.
The Mark That Quietly Reorders What We Value
The Common Seal is a mark of provenance that recognises care, teaching, and cultural labour as foundational economic activity. By quietly reordering how value is assigned, it restores status, security, and legitimacy to the work societies depend on most.
What We Choose to Protect Says Who We Are
Intangible cultural heritage reveals what societies choose to protect. As UNESCO frameworks show, nations that safeguard living practices—craft, making, and cultural knowledge—build stronger economic and cultural futures. Australia’s absence from global intangible heritage listings raises a deeper question about maturity, provenance, and the value of creative labour.
We Care Alot.
Certain forms of work sustain people, culture, and place — yet remain undervalued in modern economies. This article explores why restoring status, security, and recognition to care, teaching, and cultural labour is essential to a liveable future.
Counting Cultural Contribution
Australia’s creative economy is already carrying significant economic weight, but much of that value remains unmeasured and unprotected. Without recognising domestic and care load, creative labour—particularly women’s—continues to subsidise the economy invisibly, resulting in systemic loss rather than shared wealth.
Across the Commonwealth
Australia’s cultural labour has long powered industry, health, and community life—yet without provenance, its value leaks away. This article explores why recognising cultural contribution as trained labour, protected through provenance, is essential to building a resilient national economy.
Provenance as Economic Infrastructure
Employment in the Harris Tweed industry grew by 570% following the introduction of certification and protected provenance. This data-driven case study demonstrates how provenance operates as economic infrastructure, enabling workforce growth, regional stability, and long-term productivity in creative sectors.
1969 Was Supposed to Change Everything.
In 1969, Australia recognised equal pay for equal work. What never followed was the infrastructure to support women’s real working lives — particularly where creativity, care, and economic security intersect.
Into 2026
From creative practice to Creative Authority: how the Creative Women’s Association moved from grassroots creativity to national workforce reform in just three months, reshaping how Australia recognises creative labour, women’s work, and economic value.
Creative Health Isn’t a Side Project.
Creative health is not a small-grants sector — it is a missing economy. When women are supported to sustain caregiving and skilled creative labour through proper workforce infrastructure, billions in lost productivity and preventative health value can be unlocked.