Gender Equity Insights 2018: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap

This third report in the BCEC|WGEA Gender Equity Insights series extends and strengthens the evidence base around gender pay gaps and how these have changed over time across Australian workplaces. The report uses unique data reported to the WGEA, capturing 4 million employees and over 11,000 empl...

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Main Authors: Cassells, Rebecca, Duncan, Alan
Format: Report
Published: Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://bcec.edu.au/publications/gender-equity-insights-2018/
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/77609
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author Cassells, Rebecca
Duncan, Alan
author_facet Cassells, Rebecca
Duncan, Alan
author_sort Cassells, Rebecca
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This third report in the BCEC|WGEA Gender Equity Insights series extends and strengthens the evidence base around gender pay gaps and how these have changed over time across Australian workplaces. The report uses unique data reported to the WGEA, capturing 4 million employees and over 11,000 employers in the 2016-17 reporting period. It builds on the first and second in the series, with updated calculations of gender pay gaps across occupations and industries. Importantly, it highlights the nature and impact of workplace pay equity policies and actions companies are taking to address these gaps. Encouragingly, more Australian employers than ever before are taking pay equity seriously. In the four years of WGEA reporting, employers with a formal remuneration policy or strategy increased by 10 percentage points – from 48.9% in 2013-14 to 58.5% in 2016-17. Simultaneously, the proportion of employers undertaking a pay gap analysis increased from 24.0% to 37.7% in the same period. Our findings demonstrate a strong and convincing relationship between pay gap audits within an organisation, and importantly, taking action on audit findings, in reducing gender pay gaps. We also find that pay equity actions work better in combination than in isolation. An organisational commitment to correct like-for-like pay gaps are three times as effective in reducing overall gender pay gaps when the action is combined with a commitment to report pay outcomes to the Executive or company Board. This report confirms that many Australian organisations are taking positive, discernable and significant steps towards pay equity. These results should motivate further action and change across other Australian workplaces.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-776092021-07-21T05:41:08Z Gender Equity Insights 2018: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap Cassells, Rebecca Duncan, Alan 1402 - Applied Economics 1605 - Policy and Administration 1503 - Business and Management This third report in the BCEC|WGEA Gender Equity Insights series extends and strengthens the evidence base around gender pay gaps and how these have changed over time across Australian workplaces. The report uses unique data reported to the WGEA, capturing 4 million employees and over 11,000 employers in the 2016-17 reporting period. It builds on the first and second in the series, with updated calculations of gender pay gaps across occupations and industries. Importantly, it highlights the nature and impact of workplace pay equity policies and actions companies are taking to address these gaps. Encouragingly, more Australian employers than ever before are taking pay equity seriously. In the four years of WGEA reporting, employers with a formal remuneration policy or strategy increased by 10 percentage points – from 48.9% in 2013-14 to 58.5% in 2016-17. Simultaneously, the proportion of employers undertaking a pay gap analysis increased from 24.0% to 37.7% in the same period. Our findings demonstrate a strong and convincing relationship between pay gap audits within an organisation, and importantly, taking action on audit findings, in reducing gender pay gaps. We also find that pay equity actions work better in combination than in isolation. An organisational commitment to correct like-for-like pay gaps are three times as effective in reducing overall gender pay gaps when the action is combined with a commitment to report pay outcomes to the Executive or company Board. This report confirms that many Australian organisations are taking positive, discernable and significant steps towards pay equity. These results should motivate further action and change across other Australian workplaces. 2018 Report http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/77609 https://bcec.edu.au/publications/gender-equity-insights-2018/ Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre unknown
spellingShingle 1402 - Applied Economics
1605 - Policy and Administration
1503 - Business and Management
Cassells, Rebecca
Duncan, Alan
Gender Equity Insights 2018: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap
title Gender Equity Insights 2018: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap
title_full Gender Equity Insights 2018: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap
title_fullStr Gender Equity Insights 2018: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap
title_full_unstemmed Gender Equity Insights 2018: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap
title_short Gender Equity Insights 2018: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap
title_sort gender equity insights 2018: inside australia’s gender pay gap
topic 1402 - Applied Economics
1605 - Policy and Administration
1503 - Business and Management
url https://bcec.edu.au/publications/gender-equity-insights-2018/
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/77609