New data shines a light on gender pay gap in the public sector

The data comes from the broadest review of gender equality in the federal public service yet, conducted in 2022, and released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) on Thursday, June 20.

The findings come after private businesses were required to publish their gender pay gaps for the first time in February, and provide a direct point of comparison.

The report, which examined 116 federal government agencies with more than 100 staff, found women were earning 86 cents for every $1 men collected, resulting in a 13.5 per cent gender pay gap.

It is still well below that of the private sector, which has an overall gender pay gap of 21.7 per cent, between women and men.

The gender pay gap for agencies covered by the Public Service Act - referred to as Australian Public Service agencies - is much lower, at 5.2 per cent.

Achieving gender balance at all management levels, including the most senior bands - where 46 per cent of staff are women, 54 per cent are men - has given the public sector an edge over private businesses in its gender scorecard.

The report found this could be linked to the broad rollout of flexible work, allowing women with caring responsibilities to balance these with employment.

More than 100 APS agencies introduced bolstered rights to flexible work in new enterprise agreements earlier this year, with a bias towards approving requests enforced.

Of the Commonwealth employers surveyed by WGEA, almost all (97 per cent) had a policy or strategy in place for flexible working arrangements and 94 per cent of them actively promoted the arrangements.

WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge said the private sector could replicate these results by encouraging flexible work.

"Flexible work policies are well embedded and actively promoted [we found]," Ms Wooldridge said.

"And we believe there's a connection then, with the significant proportion of women who are working full-time, but flexibly, in comparison to the private sector.

But a low proportion of men - 11 per cent in the public sector - taking paid parental leave is a point of concern. This is behind the 14 per cent of men accessing this type of leave in the private sector.

"That's one of the more surprising results in the context of an environment that, externally, you'd think was conducive to both men and women equally taking parental leave," Ms Wooldridge said.

"The reality of that is not yet in place."

Minister for Women and the Public Service Katy Gallagher urged employers in the service to set the standard on gender equality.

"Earlier this year we published private sector gender pay gaps for the first time, now we're shining a light on progress in the public sector on gender equality," she said.

"The private sector has been reporting to WGEA for a decade - now the Commonwealth public sector has stepped up and reported as well.

"The public sector should set a standard for promoting gender equality and WGEA reporting is a key part of that."