Gender Pay Gap

Women make up half of the nation’s workforce but earn only 77 per cent of men’s average full-time income, according to the latest gender equality scorecard, which will be launched by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) at the National Press Club today. 

The latest WGEA data confirms that when Australian employers take action- the gender pay gap declines. Five years of WGEA data shows that year-on-year employer action to address pay equity has increased and year-on-year the gender pay gap has decreased.

This year’s WGEA data shows that year-on-year the gender pay gap has trended downward each year However, for the fifth year in a row, the gender pay gap persists across all industry and occupations.

Today, alongside the launch of WGEA’s fifth year of data, we have also launched a brand new way for you to explore WGEA’s archives of individual employers’ data. The WGEA Data Explorer has been updated and is now a one-stop shop for all public data collected by the Agency.

The national gender pay gap has reached its lowest level in 20 years at 14.6%. So, this year, Equal Pay Day will be on Friday 31 August, marking the 62 additional days from the end of the previous financial year that women must work to earn the same pay as men.

Medibank CEO Craig Drummond has called on Australian business leaders to “get with the program”, saying pay equity and flexible working practices are essential to attracting and retaining the best workforce.

According to UK Government Equalities Office, men out-earn women on average in three out of four organisations required to report under new gender pay gap regulations.  

We often hear about the gender pay gap. But is it really as simple as two people working side by side being paid differently?

Each year we calculate the national gender pay gap using the latest Average Weekly Earnings trend series data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), marking the additional days from the end of the previous financial year that women must work, on average, to earn the same amount as men earned that year.

A disparity in the way bonuses are allocated to women and men is a significant contributor to the gender pay gap, Australian and UK data shows.