‘Action gap’ stopping women from being promoted, paid same as men: latest data

Many organisations are putting in place gender equality policies and strategies but latest data reveals an “action gap” is stopping women from being promoted and paid the same as men.

An “action gap” in organisations is stopping women from being promoted and paid the same as men, the latest snapshot from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows.

Three quarters of organisations have gender equality policies, but only 31 per cent make them an indicator of management success, the agency’s five-year gender trends data shows.

In addition, 41 per cent of employers did an analysis of the pay gap, but less than half took no action to close the gap.

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“There’s still an action gap among employers. Lots of organisations are doing the right thing with policies and strategies but they are not putting in place action plans to ensure implementation,” Libby Lyons, director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, said.

“If you don’t make people accountable for positive outcomes, then you don’t get change,” she said.

The data, released today, shows the pay gap is down 3.4 per cent, but there is still a $25,500 average annual full-time difference between women and men.

There has also been a steady growth in women in leadership roles, except at CEO level, where the percentage of females is just 17 per cent.

“Over five years we have also seen a great increase in women in management — 39 per cent of managers are now women,” Ms Lyons said.

“This bodes well for the future.”

Workplace Gender Equality Agency director Libby Lyons. Picture: John Feder

Ms Lyons said women were being promoted strongly at the level below CEO. “If this trend continues it won’t be long before we start seeing changes in the numbers of CEOs,” she said.

She said quotas and targets could work but it was up to individual organisations to develop their own action plans.

Another positive gain is the fact that 70 per cent of businesses now have policies for flexible work — up from 57 per cent in 2013/14.

Despite this, access to parental leave is largely stagnant and the labour market remains overly gender segregated.

Over the past five years, the number of organisations with equality policies in place has risen by eight per cent, recruitment of women is up by nearly ten per cent and promotion of women is up by 13 per cent.

Ms Lyons praised organisations which have made gains.

“If you take action you get results,” she said.

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