Many companies have given years of lip service to closing the pay gap between genders. Still, the publication of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s first-ever data on how much more men are paid than women is likely to put pressure on corporate Australia to stop the window-dressing and create workplaces better-reflecting community expectations.
Rosebank College head of professional learning Jen Jackson, left, and head of HR Nancy Albatti. The school has a gender pay gap favouring women.Credit: Edwina Pickles
The data relates to nearly 5000 companies with more than 100 employees. Qantas, Virgin Australia, Telstra, Woodside and the Macquarie Group are among the companies listed as having significant gender pay gaps. Similar data for Commonwealth public sector employees will be released next year.
The agency has collected information for a decade but only released details of overall gender pay differences industry by industry, not individual companies. The Albanese government reformed the legislation last year to spur employers to close the gap. The data will now be published annually to allow companies to track the efficacy of their responses.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher sought to allay fears, saying the reforms were not about naming or shaming companies. The agency chief, Mary Wooldridge, said in a statement that publishing pay gaps would hold employers accountable for not only their current performance but also the actions and commitments each organisation made in response to their pay gap and how it might change over time.
It is right that a light should be shone on such gender pay differences because, despite years of posturing by some companies about closing the gender pay gap, the figures are clear-cut. In Australia, the median base salary for a woman is 14.5 per cent or $11,542 lower than that for a man, according to the agency. When the total salary with bonuses, overtime, superannuation and other sales incentives are included, the wage gap grows to $18,461, or 19 per cent.
Some industries are much worse than others. Men dominate in the high-risk, bonus-paying world of finance and investment and blue-collar, trades-based operational on-site roles that are higher paying jobs and attract overtime and allowances. Construction and financial services had the biggest gap, 25.2 per cent and 23.6 per cent respectively. For our part, we should note that information media and telecommunications scored 22.5 per cent.
Corporate Australia has not created the gender pay gap. For much of Australia’s first century, it was enshrined in an industrial relations system based on a male breadwinner. But companies, big and small, have failed to adjust adroitly to changes in Australian society that have made everyone a breadwinner and saw female labour participation leaping from 30 per cent in the mid-1960s to 64 per cent this year.
The gender pay gap list is the latest in a suite of reforms related to the changing workplace that have come to fruition this year. Reflecting the ongoing erosion of the dividing line between work and home for some, new laws allow employees to disconnect from work. The COVID-19 pandemic’s ongoing impact has prompted the Fair Work Commission to consider the alteration of awards to include the right to work from home.
Move to close gender pay gap is step in right direction
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27.02.2024
Many companies have given years of lip service to closing the pay gap between genders. Still, the publication of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s first-ever data on how much more men are paid than women is likely to put pressure on corporate Australia to stop the window-dressing and create workplaces better-reflecting community expectations.
Rosebank College head of professional learning Jen Jackson, left, and head of HR Nancy Albatti. The school has a gender pay gap favouring women.Credit: Edwina Pickles
The data relates to nearly 5000 companies with more than 100 employees. Qantas, Virgin Australia, Telstra, Woodside and the Macquarie Group are among the companies listed as having significant gender pay gaps. Similar data for Commonwealth public sector employees will be released next........
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