Closing the Gender Pay Gap – why it matters

BPW Australia (the Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women), founder of Equal Pay Day Alliance, has advocated for action on gender pay inequity for over 70 years.

In 2023, BPW Australia is again joining the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) call to take action to close the gender pay gap.

WGEA is an Australian Government statutory agency created by the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012. The Agency is charged with promoting and improving gender equality in the Australian Workplaces. On 30 March 2023, Parliament passed the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023. The reforms aim to accelerate workplace gender equality in Australia.

In 2023, equal pay day is 25th August, marking 56 days additional days from the end of the previous financial year that women must work, on average, to earn the same amount as men earnt that year. Progress in the past four years has been slow, with only a change from 59 days in 2019 to 56 days now.

“The Workplace Gender Equality Agency reporting provides overwhelming evidence that when employers analyse their data for pay gaps and take clear actions, their pay gap reduces,” Jacqueline Graham, President BPW Australia said.

International experience has also shown that publishing employer gender pay gaps can lead companies to prioritise gender equality and to a lowering of employer gender pay gaps. In the UK, research indicates it motivated some employers to narrow the wage gap between men and women. These reforms will encourage employers to deploy and drive workplace policies, practices and environments that support gender equality, creating meaningful shifts in Australian working life.

BPW Australia will be joining WGEA in the 56-day countdown to help continue and increase the momentum of change.

“Gender equality and gender diversity at work is not just nice to have. Gender equity is a basic human right, but its achievement also brings socio-economic benefits to everyone. By empowering women, the broader community thrives, increasing productivity and growth,” Jacqueline said.

“Australia’s Gender Pay Gap reflects gender gaps across our society. Equal Pay Day is a marker pointing to where we need to improve, to fully harness the talent of every Australian. It is not simple to do – there is no one answer - but we can make change, if we act.” Jacqueline said.

According to the WGEA Gender Equality Scorecard, women comprise only 41% of managerial roles across all professions and the same is true in sales, with only 38% of manager roles being occupied by women. Additionally, the most recent pay gap data shows women, on average earn $26,596 less than men each year, so even though there are more women entering sales roles, they aren’t being equally rewarded for sales success. 

Smart Company’s article, Closing the deal on women in sales, reports that sales roles, like many other professions, have long been the domain of men who have used their role as a stepping stone for many to launch a successful career as a business leader. In Australia, that gender imbalance may be changing, with recent data showing a relatively equal number of females and males now in general sales roles. However, it hasn’t moved up the pipeline yet, and there is still a very obvious imbalance in the number of female leaders.  

Reporting on this year's 67th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the Women’s Rights Caucus welcomed the adoption of the agreed conclusions for the theme “Innovation and Technological Change and Education in the Digital Age for Achieving Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls.” This included the renewal of a global commitment to achieving inclusive gender equality, despite significant pushback on fundamental issues within this agenda. They were encouraged to see continued multilateral support to advance the human rights of women and girls in all their diversity, as reflected in this year’s outcome.

CSW67_Agreed Conclusions

A consortium led by Women for Election (WFE) and including several gender-specialist organisations, has been awarded a $5 million federal grant over 5 years, to help increase the representation and diversity of women in public office.

Women for Election is non-partisan, with more than 2500 women across the political spectrum registering for events since 2019. A number of those women have gone on to launch campaigns or support the campaigns of other women, with some also being elected now at all levels of government.

Women for Election CEO Licia Heath told Women’s Agenda that 43 alumni ran in last year’s Federal election, and 2 of the 20 WFE alumni who ran in the recent NSW state election were elected.  Even those who didn’t gain a seat held others to a higher standard and inspired greater involvement of other women and girls to see themselves as future political leaders. Win or lose, in every contest that a woman stands, they help to shape the agenda and influence the outcome. 

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Penny Wong, has appointed Stephanie Copus-Campbell AM as the Ambassador for Gender Equality.

The Ambassador for Gender Equality is a lead advocate for Australia’s work on gender equality and the human rights of women and girls.

The Ambassador engages in international advocacy, public diplomacy, and outreach in support of Australian Government policies and programs to:

• ·         promote gender equality
• ·         eradicate sexual and gender-based violence
• ·         eliminate discrimination against women and girls, and persons of diverse gender identities
• ·         ensure better educational and health (including sexual and reproductive maternal health) opportunities and outcomes for women and girls
• ·         enhance the participation of women in decision-making and leadership
• ·         implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda

Stephanie has extensive experience working across the public, private, philanthropic and community sectors in Australia and the Indo Pacific. She has served as head of Australia’s bilateral aid programs with Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tuvalu and head of Australia’s Pacific Regional programs. She has also worked in senior executive roles with CARE Australia and the Oil Search Foundation.

In 2018, the PNG Government appointed Stephanie as Chair of the Southern Highlands Provincial Health Authority Board. She is also the founding Director on the Femili PNG Board (providing services to survivors of family and sexual violence) and actively involved in a not for profit, social impact coffee business that supports female coffee growers in PNG with all profits funding domestic violence services in PNG.

The handbook for NGOs prepared for the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York last month includes an excellent explanation of how the United Nations is structured and operates and how CSW was established. 

It also has a section starting at page 20 on digital advocacy for women's organisations that is a great toolkit for BPW clubs.  Use it to start a discussion at your club – how can you promote your campaigns through digital platforms and empower women in your locality and your state?

BPW International was invited to give an Oral Statement at the 2023 session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York last month. The statement was read by our BPW International Vice President, Chularat Israngkool Na Ayutthaya, from Thailand.

You can listen to BPW International’s CSW statement or read it.

Australia’s Treasury Department has published their research on how children affect the earnings of men and women in Australia. The authors use HILDA survey data to show the arrival of children has a large and persistent impact on the gender pay gap, reducing female earnings by 55% on average in the first 5 years of parenthood.

Personal income tax data shows this gap improves only slightly but remains high in the 10 years following the arrival of children. The authors attribute the gap to lower participation rates and reduced working hours amongst mothers. Although the decline in earnings for women is very similar regardless of their breadwinner status in the household pre-children, women with greater access to workplace flexibility are more likely to remain employed after having children.

Australian-first reforms empower Australian workers with access to employer gender pay gaps

More than four and a half million Australian employees will be able to access their employer’s gender pay gaps starting in early 2024 after the passage of the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 in Federal Parliament today.

The package of reforms requires the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) to publish employer gender pay gaps for private sector and Commonwealth public sector employers. This will be done by mean, median and employer remuneration quartile.

The Australian-first measure covers the workplaces of approximately 40 per cent of the nation’s workforce.

WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge welcomed the passage of the Bill and acknowledged the leadership and significant work of Minister for Women Sen. The Hon. Katy Gallagher to deliver these crucial reforms.

Ms Wooldridge said the reforms shape the future of workplace gender equality and will give employees greater insights into their workplaces’ gender equality policies and priorities.

“For the first time, from 2024 employees will have access to the key indicator of how their organisation is performing on gender equality,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“Employees and prospective employees are placing high value on jobs that support gender equality.

“Publishing employer gender pay gaps will provide deeper insights on their employer’s progress, while job-seekers can get a clearer indication of a prospective employer’s commitment to ensuring the contributions of all employees are equally valued and rewarded.

“This is also an opportunity for employers who may have been slow to prioritise gender equality to get serious about change.”

Ms Wooldridge said Agency data showed that employers gain a competitive edge when they make gender equality a priority.

“Analysis of workforce data reported by employers that hold WGEA’s Employer of Choice for Gender Equality (EOCGE) citation has shown dedicated action gets results, with these employers closing their gender pay gaps faster than others,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“One of the recurring messages from our most recent recipients of the EOCGE citation was that as soon as they started on the path to gender equality, they saw the benefits and they wished they had started earlier.”

International research is showing that publishing employer pay gaps can be a powerful motivation for companies to prioritise gender equality and to lower their gender pay gaps. In the UK, the approach has already motivated employers to substantially narrow the wage gap between men and women.

“A key aim of publishing gender pay gaps is to help employers show improvement over time,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“That is why an essential part of the legislative reforms is to give employers the option to provide a statement that gives context to their gender pay gap results and outlines their plans for action.

“WGEA will continue to actively support all reporting employers to make progress on gender equality in Australian workplaces as these reforms are implemented.”

The reform package also strengthens WGEA’s world-leading dataset with mandatory reporting from 2024 of employee age, primary workplace location and CEO remuneration, as well as spurring accelerated action by requiring WGEA’s gender equality reports are shared with governing bodies.

The changes also support safer workplaces and advance implementation of the Respect@Work report with enhanced reporting on the prevalence, prevention and employer response to sexual harassment and harassment on the grounds of sex or discrimination.

From 2024, large employers with 500 or more employees must also have policies or strategies in place to address all six gender equality indicators.

Media contact

Emma Manser |  0437 225 386  |  E emma.manser@wgea.gov.au  

BPW members will have attended and hosted International Women's Day events around the country and heard inspiring speakers celebrating women's achievements but also relaying dismaying statistics about the progress of women's equality.  Now take the time to listen to listed to two leading women, Sam Mostyn and Katy Gallagher, summarising where we’re at and what’s next for Australian women.

On International Women's Day, the federal government released the Status of Women Report Card which provides a data summary of what life looks like for women in Australia in 2023. The report card looks at education, economic outcomes, health, safety and wellbeing, housing and gender norms girls and women experience in careers and working life, through parenthood and families, and in later life. Listen as Katy Gallagher, Minister for Women delivers the Susan Ryan Oration and Sam Mostyn AO provides insight into the work the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce is doing.