Gender equity insights 2017: inside Australia's gender pay gap

Abstract

A new analysis of Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) data shows that sizeable gender pay gaps persist across the workforce, but that improving gender balance in leadership teams measurably improves pay equity in organisations. Gender Equity Insights 2017: Inside Australia's Gender Pay Gap, the second in the BCEC|WGEA Gender Equity Insights series, also reveals that male graduates are more likely to access high paying roles than female graduates. Key findings: Increasing the representation of women in executive leadership roles is associated with lowering gender pay gaps. Organisations with the lowest share of female executive leaders have an average gender pay gap double the size of those with an equal share of women in senior roles: 20% compared with 10%. Organisations that increased the share of women in executive leadership roles by more than 10% recorded a reduction in the organisational gender pay gap of 3 percentage points over the course of a single year. Overall, the median gender pay gaps for full-time graduate trainees are 2.9% on base salary and 2.1% on total remuneration. However, the gender pay gap for graduate trainees progressively widens among the top echelons of salary earners. The highest-paid 10% of women in graduate trainee positions receive at least $81,000 in base salary, whereas the highest-paid 10% of male graduate trainees took home at least $88,000. The average gender pay gap declines as female representation among management increases. The managerial gender pay gap falls steadily from around 15% in total remuneration among firms where one-fifth of managers (20%) are female, to 8% for organisations where four-fifths of managers (80%) are female. However, gender pay gaps are seen to rise sharply in workplaces with the highest concentrations of female managers. For organisations with a greater than 80% share of female managers, the management gender pay gap rises from around 8% to more than 17% in favour of men.