Twenty-six years until equality: apathy fuels slow progress on gender pay gap

The new data, from the government agency and the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, also shows the gender pay gap could take 26 years to close, if current trends continue.

Workplaces with more than 100 employees are required to report their pay data to the agency annually, giving a snapshot of the gender pay gap across the nation, across sectors, and in management and non-management roles.

While the pay gap for total remuneration has shrunk from 24.7 per cent in 2014 to 20.1 per cent in 2020, some sectors, like mining, utilities and finance, have made more progress than others.

Female-dominated industries like community and personal services actually saw the gap widen.

The data didn't include the impact of COVID-19, which data has shown has had an uneven and gendered impact on the workforce.

The agency measured what happened in companies that undertook their own internal pay gap audits, showing companies that consistently audited pay between 2015 and 2020 saw their pay gap drop across management and non-management roles.

But companies that stopped auditing pay after 2017 immediately saw the pay gap in management roles increase - by 5.1 percentage points by 2020. The pay gap for non-management roles also increased in those companies, but not to the same extent.

"The average gender pay gap remained worse for companies that stopped pay audits from 2017 onwards, by close to, or in excess of, four percentage points in each year," the report said.

Report co-author Alan Duncan said it was a symbol of the apathy around the gender pay gap in some companies and sectors. More than half of the organisations covered by the agency's research don't conduct their own pay audits.

"Organisations with a higher concentration of women tend to be the most apathetic," he said.

"This is even evident when looking at board representation, where male-dominated industries are more likely to be closer to having a proportionate representation of women on boards than many female-dominated sectors."

Report author and Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre deputy director Associate Professor Rebecca Cassells said the gender pay gap among full-time executives could be eliminated within 10 years, and in less than 15 years for senior managers.

"For workers in non-management roles, it could take even longer," she said.

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