'National results show a persistent and pervasive gender pay gap still limits the lifetime earnings of Australian women'
Australia's gender pay gap has increased to 21.8% in 2023-24, according to data released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) on Wednesday.
This pay gap means women only earn 78 cents for every dollar that men earn, leading to a yearly difference of $28,425.
According to WGEA, this year's data included for the first time the remuneration of highly paid executives, including chief executive officers (CEO), heads of business (HOB), and casual managers.
"The increase in the gender pay gap in 2023–24 shows how the inclusion of highly remunerated roles, such as the CEO or HOB, influences the gender pay gap," WGEA said in its report.
Source: WGEA Gender Equality Scorecard 2023-24
However, the inclusion of CEOs and other highly paid execs makes the data recorded and analysed this year different from what was tracked last year.
Without the remuneration data of highly remunerated roles, WGEA said the pay gap would slide to 21.1%, down by 0.6 percentage points from the 2022-23 pay gap.
Source: WGEA Gender Equality Scorecard 2023-24
It attributed the reduction to the increase in the wages of low-paid workers, particularly in Residential Aged Care, where women make up approximately 80% of employees.
Meanwhile, WGEA also found that 68% of organisations conducted a gender pay gap analysis, where 90% of them said they did so in the past 12 months.
The proportion of employers who also took action from the findings of the analysis reached 75%, up from 60% in the previous year.
"Encouragingly, our results suggest the anticipated publication of employer gender pay gaps had a motivational effect," said WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge in a statement.
Australia published this year the gender pay gap of private sector employers in line with a recent legislation to boost transparency and equality at work.
"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," Wooldridge said.
"But 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."
