The True Cost Of The Gender Pay Gap

Yes, we still have a pay gap, and it’s enough to buy a new car.

As reported on The Women’s Agenda, there is a $26,000 pay gap between men and women working full-time, according to the latest gender equality scorecard which  covers 11,000 employers and four million employees in Australia.

The ‘financial and insurance services’ sector leads the gap out of all industries in Australia at 31.9%. This is shown in new data compiled by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, which is based on reports it has received on pay gaps, workforce gender compositions and actions employers are taking on gender equality.

But there are some good news, more organisations are making a conscious effort in taking gender equality more seriously, which generally should be a norm.

Today’s data from the WGWA have shown us that 38.4% of all managers are women with that number expecting to rise to 43.4% in the next reporting period.

But we still have more work to do to close that $26,000 gap.

Here are 5 things to note as collected from the Gender Equality scorecard:

1. There is a $26,000 pay gap between men and women who work full-time. The gap is 17.3% (or worth $16,183) when it comes to full-time base salaries, and 22.4% when considering full-time total remuneration.
2. Gender pay gaps vary across industries and seniority. For ‘Key management personnel’ the gap is 24.9%. It’s 24% for ‘other executives/general managers’, 21.1% for senior managers and 22.9% for other managers.
3. Women’s representation continues to decline with seniority. But it’s changing, very slowly. Women make up 16.5% of CEO/Heads of business, up from 16.3% in the previous year. 
4. Women are getting promoted! The report found 43.4% of managerial appointments, including promotions, were female, up from 42.6% in the previous year. 
5. Men continue to dominate full-time roles. 33.9% of the total workforce is made up of men working full-time and 20.1% of women working full-time. From there:
   1. 5.4% of the workforce is men working part time
   2. 10.7% is men working casually
   3. 16.4% is women working part-time
   4. 13.5% is women working casually.