Janine Saligari is part of an emerging cohort of women in their 50s and 60s without the financial means to support themselves

Janine Saligari knows she’ll be forced to work beyond retirement age and characterises her experience in the workforce as one “kick in the teeth” after another.

Saligari, 43, has worked in the community mental health sector for 11 years before she was made redundant in October last year. She has now picked up casual work.

Figures released on Thursday show the national gender pay gap remains stable at 14% and the gap between full-time average weekly earnings for men and women was $241.50 per week.

Saligari lives paycheck to paycheck and has spent most of her career in female-dominated industries, struggling to gain promotions into management, generally headed up by men.

“There was a boys’ club there. Somebody would come in and they would be mates with one of the other male managers,” she told Guardian Australia.

“Regardless of my merit and putting in, they would have a [bloke] in mind anyway.”

Australia's gender pay gap still 14%, with men earning $240 more a week than women Read more

The Melbourne single mother is helping to support both her adult daughters through Tafe and university. “I have daughters [about] to enter the workforce and … they still have the same fight on their hands,” Saligari said.

She worries about her ability to maintain financial independence in her retirement years. “I’ve only been earning super in the last 10 years. I’ve been working since I was 14. And I’ve got nothing to show for it,” she said. “I’d be lucky to have $30,000 in super.”

The RMIT University economist Leonora Risse notes the superannuation balance gap between men and women is about 34%. It’s contributing to a growing homelessness crisis among women aged over 55.

“What we are now seeing sadly is an emerging cohort of women, reaching their 50s and their 60s, and often they are no longer part of a relationship. They are economically on their own and don’t have the financial means to support themselves through their retirement years,” Risse said.

The capacity to build up super balances was also being eroded by other family responsibilities such as caring for ageing parents and grandchildren.

Risse said moves to increase compulsory contributions wouldn’t change the gap and said policymakers needed to look at topping up super balances for new mothers on maternity leave.

She acknowledged effective marginal tax rates were also contributing to the gender pay gap. In other words, after having a baby, women wanting to return to full-time work are finding it isn’t financially viable to do more than four days a week because of means-tested childcare rebates and family tax benefits.

“It doesn’t financially stack up,” Risse said. “At the moment it is one of the single biggest barriers to labour force participation and it falls heavily on women because they are the second income earner in the family.”

It seems even academics who study the gender pay gap issue aren’t immune. Risse said if she had “thought more like a male” her career trajectory may be different.

“I think I’ve been like a lot of women and gone through my career basically accepting what the stated salary was. We weren’t necessarily tuned into the fact there’s capacity to bargain,” Risse said.

“It’s only later on, that it kind of twigs – that person has negotiated a higher starting salary, or that person went for a job I didn’t think I was qualified for. But actually now that I look at it, I realise I have the same experience and skills they do.”

Men approach their careers more often as a “strategic game” and apply for more external jobs and then use that as leverage, whereas women often show loyalty to the same employer, she said.

Risse said women are often accused of not having the confidence to ask for a payrise or put their hand up for a promotion but the reluctance was much more complex.

“Women who do show ambition and confidence are often negatively viewed as bossy, whereas a male [with the same behaviour] is viewed favourably,” she said.

“Women are not doubting their capacity to do the job, they are doubting how they’ll be received.”

Recruiters should be looking more closely at the job criteria for promotion roles and not be fooled by overconfidence and charisma, she said.