‘A pervasive gender pay gap still limits Australian women’: WGEA publishes 2024 Gender Equality Scorecard
New results from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) have confirmed that improvements are being made in gender equality, but there is still more to be done in Australian workplaces.
The information released on Wednesday in WGEA’s 2023-24 Gender Equality Scorecard covers more than 7,400 private sector employers and nearly 5.17 million Australian employees. The information is largely related to the year prior to WGEA publishing employer gender pay gaps for the first time in late February 2024. This means it reflects what employers were doing in anticipation of this change.
The ability to collect new information, following legislative changes, has enhanced what employers report to WGEA. This includes CEO and heads of business (HOB) remuneration, employee age and primary workplace location and employer actions to prevent, and respond to, sexual harassment.
For the first time, the remuneration of highly-paid executives – CEOs, HOBs and casual managers – has been included in WGEA reporting and included in the analysis.
According to the scorecard, the total remuneration gender pay gap has dropped by 0.6 percentage points, and employers are reporting increased analysis and action on the drivers of their gaps.
The new gender pay gap is 21.8% so women earn 78 cents for every dollar men earn, equating to $28,425. 50% of employers have an average total remuneration gender pay gap over 12.1% and a median gender pay gap over 8.9% – down from 9.1% last year.
56.4% of employers – the majority in every industry – have improved their average total remuneration gap over the past year.
WGEA’s CEO, Mary Wooldridge, said there was an observable shift in employer focus and attention in the past 12 months, noting the latest results reflect the landscape in Australian workplaces as employers anticipated their gender pay gaps being published for the first time in February.
“Employers are being held to account on their gender equality performance by employees, prospective employees, investors and the community. Business leaders are being challenged to articulate the drivers of their gap and how they will address it,” she said.
“Encouragingly, our results suggest the anticipated publication of employer gender pay gaps had a motivational effect.
“WGEA’s results show change is happening, with a significant increase in employers investigating what’s driving their gender pay gap and acting on the results.”
The scorecard found the proportion of employers conducting a gender pay gap analysis increased 13 percentage points to 68%. Of those, 90% did the analysis in the past 12 months. The proportion of employers taking action on the results of their analysis increased 15 percentage points to 75%.
There has been a 20 percentage point increase on employers having policy or strategy to consult with their staff on gender equality – up to 51%, and a 22 percentage point increase on staff actually consulting their employees – up to 69%.
Nearly half (45%) of the employers in the scorecard have said they will set targets – of those, 68% have a target of increasing women in management, 59% have a target of reducing their gender pay gap, and 35% have a target of a gender-balanced governing body.
More employers are also offering paid parental leave – up 5 percentage points to 68%, and a greater proportion of primary carer parental leave is being taken by men – up 3 percentage points to 17%.
Despite this, the scorecard also noted where action is severely lacking.
Just one in four CEOs/HOBs are women, according to the agency, and the gender pay gap for these key roles is the highest of all managers at 27.1%. Women in these roles are paid, on average, $158,632 less total remuneration than men.
One in four Boards still have no women – and in male-dominated industries, this increases to 41%.
30% of women work part-time, but only 7% of managerial roles are part-time.
28% of employers are not collecting information on the prevalence of sexual harassment in their workplace, and 100% of occupations and industries have a gender pay gap in favour of men.
“The national results show a persistent and pervasive gender pay gap still limits the lifetime earnings of Australian women, affecting their ability to save, invest and build long-term financial security for themselves and their families,” Wooldridge concluded.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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