Closing the gender pay gap: A key to ending violence against women

For the first time today, thousands of businesses around Australia had their gender pay gaps published by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency .

But what does this actually mean for your business?

Another layer of obligation and bureaucracy – or an opportunity for meaningful change to end violence against women?

As someone working with businesses on a daily basis to drive gender equality, I see a once in a generation opportunity for large scale systematic change. And an opportunity that is aligned to many of your business’ values. Maybe more than you realise…

But before we explore what gender pay gap reporting means for your business, let’s take a look at what it means for the country as a whole.

The good news…

The gender pay gap is decreasing and is currently at an all-time low.

The bad news…

At 21.7%, it’s still far too high.

This means that on average, women are earning $26,000 less than men a year.

Over a woman’s working life, that’s an average of $1 million less.

The compounding impact of the gender pay gap over a woman’s lifetime

This gap builds up over years and decades, intersecting with other elements of inequality. For example, feminised work being valued less and remunerated as such. Or women taking on more unpaid caring roles, often taking time away from paid work to support parents or look after young children.

Across the first five years of parenting their first child, women’s earnings are reduced by 55% on average. During the same time, men’s earnings remain largely unaffected .

In the 2019-20 financial year, the median superannuation balance of women aged 65+ years was $168,000 for women , compared to $208,200 for men.

This gap might not sound like much, but think about what that means when we know women over 55 are the fastest growing cohort of homeless Australians .

What causes the gender pay gap?

The gender pay gap is like the tip of an iceberg, visible when we shine a light on it, but what creates it and what it magnifies, is part of a broader system of inequality.

Women are more likely to:

• work in lower-paid roles and industries
• work in part-time or casual employment
• take time off from paid work to care for children, parents, or others
• experience sexual harassment or discrimination at work
• experience family or domestic violence.

Source: Retirement Income Review Final Report July 2020

How do we close the gender pay gap?

We need to know the problem and talk about it, to actually start solving it.

Now that your workforce and the broader community, has access to your gender pay gap data, you have a choice.

Will you look away and minimally address it, or will you embrace this moment to understand your data, engage in real conversations, and take steps to address the gap?

The first step can be daunting, but this work is incremental – I encourage you to look at what you can now.

You could:

• Conduct further analysis to your pay, auditing to quantify your gender pay gap both in base pay and bonuses, across part time and full time, and across all positions and areas of the business and look at what is driving that gender pay gap.
• Review policies to see whether they are contributing to the pay gap. Look at things like the opportunities for promotion for part-time workers, parental leave and removing names from job applications to reduce unconscious bias.
• Train your staff to better understand gender inequality, and how it can show up at work and in our communities.

What are the benefits of eliminating the gender pay gap for businesses?

In workplaces where women are equal, violence is less likely, and employees thrive. Your action will:

• help create the conditions for long-term success and growth
• improve productivity and business performance
• improve employee engagement
• enhance your business's reputation as an industry leader.

Take action against the gender pay gap with the Our Watch Institute

We offer tailored solutions to help you embed gender equality in your workplace:

• one-on-one coaching
• executive team or all staff training
• policy reviews
• implementation support.

We’re committed to meeting workplaces where they’re at – no judgement.

Reach out today by emailing us  or use the form at the bottom of the page to discuss your needs.