[1] After completing her secondary education at St Catherine's School in Toorak, she took a BCom at the University of Melbourne in 1968.
[2] In 1976 she received a PhD from La Trobe University for her thesis "An economic model of government choice and its application to problems of federalism".
[3] Richardson's academic career began as economics tutor at La Trobe University.
She transferred to Flinders University in 2000 as professor of labour economics and has been a principal research fellow since 2008.
[8] She was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours for "service to the social sciences, particularly in the field of labour market economics as an academic and researcher, and through contributions to the development of socially inclusive public policy".