In this, the 50th year since the signing of the Equal Pay Act in Australia, a new report has shockingly revealed that the biggest contributor to the gender pay gap is (drum roll please): gender discrimination.
With the pay gap at 14 per cent, today has been declared [Un] Equal Pay Day – marking the additional days from the end of the financial year that women need to work to earn the same annual salary as men. (And BTW ladies that’s 59 extra days we had to work JUST to earn the same as our male colleagues. WTF?)
Watch Below: Fans Chant “Equal Pay” At After The U.S. Women’s Soccer World Cup Win.
Research by the advisory firm KPMG confirmed that it is “entrenched gender stereotypes” that continue to impact the careers of women. These outdated stereotypes, which still shape the working lives of Australian men and women, include practices such as:
* gender-based hiring and promotions in the workplace;
* highly segregated occupations that culturally exclude women from participation;
* persistent assumptions that caring roles for children and elderly is women’s work only;
* the fact women pay a `motherhood penalty’ of reduced earnings after having children, while new fatherhood usually comes with a salary increase for men;
* the bulk of the burden of domestic chores still falls disproportionally to women.
In more concerning news, the report revealed that this type of gender discrimination is on the rise – increasing 10 per cent since the last survey in 2014.
RELATED: Equal Pay Day 2019 Announced
Libby Lyons, Director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, co-commissioner of the report with Diversity Council Australia, made an impassioned plea to everyday Australians to challenge the “blind acceptance that women’s work is less valuable than men’s.”
“We know there are many actions employers can take to achieve pay equity,” she said. “However we cannot rely solely on the actions of employers if we are going to close the gender pay gap. We must also change the outlook, the hearts and minds of all Australians. We must challenge ourselves in order to change the very ingrained gender stereotypes that underpin the gender pay gap.”
The WGEA and DCA have been strong advocates for discouraging gender discrimination in the workplace and supporting initiatives to achieve pay equity such as increasing pay transparency and reporting on gender pay gaps, increasing availability of flexible work, childcare and shared parental leave and addressing unconscious bias to change workplace culture.
Apart from gender discrimination, the second-biggest driver of the pay gap, according to the report, was career interruptions. Both men and women experience interruptions due to career breaks, study and unemployment. However, women in particular also tend to spend time away from work to care for young children and elderly relatives. In order to reduce the pay gap, workplaces need to ensure that both women and men have access to parental leave, carers leave and flexible work options and that men are encouraged to take up these leave provisions.
Read more: Parental Leave Equality: Why It’s Time To Deliver For Dads
Industrial and occupational segregation also contributed to a further 17 per cent of the gender pay gap. Occupational segregation occurs when men and women are unequally distributed within workplaces, where women tend to occupy lower-level positions and are underrepresented in more senior or managerial roles. Industrial segregation refers to the concentration of males or females to particular jobs, such as so-called ‘pink collar jobs’: nursing, child care, teaching and secretarial work. Gender expectations and social norms contribute to the feminisation of certain jobs, forcing women into roles and industries that are dominated by women and paid less than industries dominated by men.
The evidence presented by KPMG suggests that there is still a long way to go to close the gender pay gap, let alone the further pay inequality experienced by women of colour and indigenous women.
In this, the 50th year since the signing of the Equal Pay Act in Australia, a new report has shockingly revealed that the biggest contributor to the gender pay gap is (drum roll please): gender discrimination.
With the pay gap at 14 per cent, today has been declared [Un] Equal Pay Day – marking the additional days from the end of the financial year that women need to work to earn the same annual salary as men. (And BTW ladies that’s 59 extra days we had to work JUST to earn the same as our male colleagues. WTF?)
Watch Below: Fans Chant “Equal Pay” At After The U.S. Women’s Soccer World Cup Win.
In this, the 50th year since the signing of the Equal Pay Act in Australia, a new report has shockingly revealed that the biggest contributor to the gender pay gap is (drum roll please): gender discrimination.
With the pay gap at 14 per cent, today has been declared [Un] Equal Pay Day – marking the additional days from the end of the financial year that women need to work to earn the same annual salary as men. (And BTW ladies that’s 59 extra days we had to work JUST to earn the same as our male colleagues. WTF?)
Watch Below: Fans Chant “Equal Pay” At After The U.S. Women’s Soccer World Cup Win.
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