Can we stop justifying gender pay gaps because women dominate care sectors?
The fact that female-dominated industries are underpaid does not excuse an overall gender pay gap.
It's been a few days since the Workplace Gender Equality Agency released new data highlighting the average $25,800 less in total remuneration women received than men in 2020-21 for full-time work.
The data includes four million employees, or roughly 40% of Australia's total labour force, from organisations with more than 100 employees.
As a result, the data tells a fairly comprehensive storey.
It's been a few days since the Workplace Gender Equality Agency released new data highlighting the average $25,800 less in total remuneration women received than men in 2020-21 for full-time work.
The data includes four million employees, or roughly 40% of Australia's total labour force, from organisations with more than 100 employees.
As a result, the data tells a fairly comprehensive story.
Nonetheless, anyone reporting on this new data has already received some helpful advice as to why the gender pay gap does not exist or (worse) justification for why the gender pay gap does exist and is thus not worth discussing.
The explanations have been pouring into our inboxes here at Women's Agenda, where the emails range from one extreme to the other in terms of tone. On the one hand, such emails can be openly abusive, while on the other, they can be aggressively polite.
These explainers or justifications for the gender pay gap may take a softer approach, such as claiming that gender pay gaps are impossible because it is illegal to pay women less. They'll take the attempted logical approach: this study doesn't provide "role for role comparisons" (that's not what this gap has measured, nor is it what WGEA claims to have presented). Then they'll veer into their own justifications for gender pay disparities, such as the fact that lower-paid care sectors, such as early childhood education and nursing, are dominated by women.
As if there isn't anything to see in the data, because these female-dominated industries are already underpaid. Worse, because they primarily involve caring for or educating others, they should be underpaid.
Let us set aside for the moment the fact that the WGEA discovered that every one of Australia's 19 industries, including healthcare and social assistance, has a gender pay gap in favour of men. Sure, the gap is narrower in some industries, such as construction.
Anyone who tries to justify gender pay disparities by claiming that women choose lower-paying professions has clearly not been paying attention over the last few years.
These are the industries that have supported every other sector of the economy over the last few years. The educators who ensured that childcare centres remained open. The nurses who have worked in vaccination clinics, ICUs, and held the hands of dying COVID patients. Aged care workers who have helped older Australians during lockdowns.
If you haven't personally been helped by those who work in these sectors during the pandemic, you probably know someone who has.
These sectors also have employees who are feeling burned out, looking for other options, and, in some cases, taking to the streets to demand higher pay.
Despite those who continue to offer explanations or justifications for the gender pay gap, a growing number of employers are taking action to close the gaps in their organisations. According to WGEA, 42% of employers have reduced pay disparities since 2020.
Still, 37% of employers report that the gap has widened, while 21% report that it has remained static.
Another piece of good news came in the form of data we published earlier this week, which revealed that three out of every five employers now provide paid parental leave.
Meanwhile, female managers are on the rise, accounting for 41% of all managers, up from 36% in 2013. One in every five CEOs and one in every three board members in reporting entities are female.
o there has been some, albeit minor, progress on the data covering two-fifths of Australia's working population. Unfortunately, the gap could be even wider in the rest of the population, because employees would be working in smaller businesses with less scrutiny over their equal opportunity and employment practises.
Other key stats from the data: