Corporates need to step up for women and ensure they are paid equally for their work
Negotiation only goes so far when it comes to pay. It’s harder to overcome the structural barriers to inequality.
Australia’s female graduates are facing as much as 20 per cent wage disparity with men from the moment they leave university, and economists say both business and the higher education sector must play their role to close the gender pay gap.
Data last month from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows the average gender pay gap between women and men remained a stark 13.4 per cent during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: women working full-time earned $1562 a week while men working full-time earned $1804.20.
The income gap between women and men — according to last year’s Graduate Outcomes Survey — starts as early as the year after leaving university. According to the survey by the Department of Education and Skills, male graduates in 2017 earned a median salary of $62,600 in full-time work a year after they left higher education, 4.3 per cent more than females at $60,000.
That gap only grew larger as men earned a median of $80,000 three years after graduating from university, 9.4 per cent more than women at $73,100.
University of Sydney gender, work and employment relations professor Rae Cooper tells The Australian there is a significant contrast in the booming number of women going to university and graduating, and the way they are being treated by employers.
“We have better educated female graduates in the prime-age workforce than many other countries in the OECD,” Cooper says.
“Women want to participate in higher education in bigger numbers than ever and we — universities, governments — are investing in them.
“But there is still this structural bias in pay and corporations need to pay attention to that and ensure they have substantial and scientific ways to record and address the gender pay gap.
“There is a role for educational institutions in overcoming that pay bias. At the University of Sydney we are attempting to educate our students entering the workplace about structural pay problems and forearming them for those challenges.”
‘We have better educated female graduates in the prime-age workforce than many other countries in the OECD’
— Professor Rae Cooper
Disciplines in which men outpaced women the most in their earnings three years after graduation in the Graduates Outcomes Survey included architecture and the built environment (20 per cent more) and business and management (8 per cent more).
The gender pay gap was also significantly high in traditionally female-dominated industries such as health services and support (11 per cent more), social work and nursing (9 per cent more).
For postgraduate degree holders, the salary gap between women and men is even larger.
Just after graduation, men with postgraduate degrees earned a median $93,900, 20 per cent more than females ($78,000). Three years after graduation men are earning a median $109,000, 19 per cent more than women at $91,800.
RMIT gender economist Leonora Risse said organisations — even in female-dominated sectors — need to be the primary force in closing gender pay gaps.
“A common reaction is that female graduates need to negotiate with employers more like men do. That comes from a well-meaning place but that doesn’t necessarily affect the outcome for women, and women aren’t bad at negotiating,” Risse says.
“The onus needs to be on corporations and organisations and urging them to act. Asking them ‘What are you doing to address the gender pay gap?’And we can’t be complacent about female-dominated industries.
“The fact there are still significant pay gaps in sectors where women make up a bigger proportion of the labour market shows how they are valued differently to men.”
Cooper warns the structural pay bias women face straight out of university can have repercussions well into their futures, unless the gender pay gap is addressed: “We know the pay gap for graduates compounds over time. That growing gap impacts superannuation and we see how women are farther behind on retirement savings than men.”