If Women Were the First Generation to Earn Their Own Money, Why Are So Many Facing Homelessness?

She was at a book signing when a well-dressed woman hung back until everyone had gone. Then she leaned in and whispered: I can't afford to buy your book. I've worked all my life. And I'm terrified I'm going to end up homeless. Jane Caro heard that story again and again on tour — from teachers, nurses, managers, women who had done everything right. It became the rawest material in her research on women over 55, and it is the reason this conversation exists.In This Episode:Why women born in the 1950s and 60s are the first generation in history to earn their own money as a whole cohort — and why almost no one has noticed or celebrated itThe devastating paradox: Australia's fastest-growing homeless group is women over 55, and the face of poverty is increasingly single women over 60 and 70The "deal with the devil" — why women traded income for flexibility, and what that bargain ultimately cost themJane's single most important financial instruction for every woman: own your own roofThe Teal movement — how ordinary women in teal t-shirts knocked on doors, held kitchen-table meetings, and elected 11 independent candidates to the Australian parliamentWhy Jane believes "if you don't do politics, politics will do you" — and how women's anger translated into electoral powerCoercive control in intimate relationships — and Jane's argument that it mirrors the tactics of totalitarian political leadersWhy power is not a dirty word: power just means the ability to take actionWhat women over 60 have that younger women do not: the freedom to stop caring what anyone thinksJane's call to action for women worldwide: write the op-ed, find your passion, sit at the kitchen table, run for local councilAbout Jane CaroJane Caro AM is a Walkley Award-winning author, columnist, novelist, feminist, public education activist and social commentator based in Sydney, Australia. She has published 13 books, including Accidental Feminists — her landmark examination of women over 55 — and her 2024 bestselling novel The Mother, about coercive control. A former multi-award-winning advertising copywriter and academic, she writes for Nine Media, The Saturday Paper, and The Monthly, appears regularly on ABC's The Gruen and the Today shows, and speaks to audiences across Australia on feminism, power, and democracy. She has 190,000+ followers on social media, and she is a beef producer and timber grower.Connect with Jane CaroBooks: Accidental Feminists, The Mother (2024), Lyrebird (April 2025) — available at all major booksellersResourcesWeCanDoItWomen.com — join Debra's community