Australian companies have improved their gender pay gap compared to last year, but women still earn on average 88.8 cents for every dollar a man earns. The gender pay gap, which measures the difference between the average earnings of women and men, now stands at 11.2 percent, down 0.9 percentage points from last year.
More than 5.9 million workers from over 10,000 employers can access the data, which includes company plans to reduce the gap. Employers with more than 100 staff are legally required to report their pay gaps to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). This is the third year the data has been available, allowing scrutiny of individual company progress.
WGEA chief executive Mary Wooldridge said the difference between what men and women are paid is coming down. She clarified that the gender pay gap is different from equal pay for equal work, which has been law for 50 years. The gap is affected by factors such as women doing more part-time work, less work in fields with bonuses or commissions, and more time off for pregnancy and caring responsibilities.
Industries with the largest gender pay gaps include construction and mining. In construction, women earn 23.8 percent less in total pay than men, and only 10 percent of women are in the top quartile of pay, while they make up 37 percent of the lowest pay quartile. More than 53 percent of Australian workers are employed in gender-dominated industries, where over 60 percent of staff are men or women.
Astghik Mavisakalyan from Curtin University said awareness of gender segregation needs to be brought into the education system, as segregation comes with costs. Registered nurse Luke Fowlie, who works in a female-dominated sector, would like to see more men take up nursing. Mili Peniamina, a casual woman labourer in construction, said she has been treated well in her role.
