Australia’s progress on closing the gender pay gap has stalled.
Across the 2021-22 financial year, women earned $26,596 less than men on average, according to the latest annual data released this morning by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).
It means Australia’s gender pay gap is stuck at 22.8% — the same as last year. Just one in four boards has gender balance, with men twice as likely to be in the top income bracket as women. The number of women who are CEOs, however, has increased to 22.3%, up 2.9% since last year.
Companies aren’t acting on the gender pay gap either. While 54% of employers conducted a gender pay gap analysis, 40% didn’t act on the findings.
Australia recently passed legislation banning pay secrecy clauses. Research from the UK, US, Canada and Denmark all saw a decline in the gender pay gap following pay transparency rules. In the US, women’s wages increased by up to 12% following the new laws, while in Canada the gender pay gap was slashed by up to 40% in some instances.
University of Melbourne professor in human resource management Michelle Brown told Crikey while it was a good first step, more needed to be done to address inequities. Social taboos, she added, still played a role.
“One of the big challenges now is encouraging people to talk about pay and realising that having other people’s pay information can be really helpful in making decisions about your own life,” she said.
“You want to be able to do all of your research, collect lots of information, then make decisions about whether you’ve been paid fairly, whether you should stay or go for a promotion.”
Last month New York City implemented legislation requiring companies to list salary ranges in job applications. Brown is calling for Australia to introduce similar legislation.
“Having pay ranges is really significant [in reducing the gender pay gap] because it means two employees start on the same salary band,” she said, rather than basing pay on the person’s previous salary, perpetuating historic pay gaps.
Transparency doesn’t solve everything either, Brown said. She’s currently researching what happens when employees challenge pay decisions, finding that in many cases, the company argues it’s the employee’s performance impacting their pay, not gender. With the current workforce and skills shortage in Australia, Brown said, employees with a reputation or unequal pay could struggle to find staff.
WEGA Director Mary Wooldridge echoed these sentiments, saying the “failure to improve” should serve as a “clarion call” for employers.
“At a time when Australia is experiencing a critical skills and labour shortage, WGEA’s annual Employer Census shows that too many employers have failed to step up on gender equality leaving many women no better off than they were 12 months ago,” she said.
“If you’re not making progress on these things, your employees will realise there are others who are.”
