Gender pay gap almost $1bn a week

New report reveals gender pay gap is $51.8 billion annually, with gender discrimination contributing 36 per cent.

KPMG chair Alison Kitchen. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The national pay gap between men and women is nearing $1bn a week, with gender discrimination remaining the leading cause and responsible for more than one-third of the gap.

A joint report by KPMG, the Diversity Council of Australia and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency estimates the gender pay gap is $51.8bn annually, with gender discrimination contributing 36 per cent of the $2.56 hourly pay gap.

It finds the national gender pay gap in the female-dominated industries of healthcare and social assistance as well as education and training, are bigger than the national average of 6.5 per cent, at 11.3 per cent and 13.8 per cent respectively per hour.

The share of management positions held by women across education and training is disproportionate to their participation in the industry by 17 percentage points – a disparity that widened with seniority.

KPMG chair Alison Kitchen said the national gender pay gap remained “stubbornly” unchanged despite action across the public and private sectors to address gender discrimination.

“The headline surprise to me was that we are not going forwards,” she said of the findings, which are based on data collected up to August 2020.

“The other really surprising and disappointing thing to me is that discrimination remains the biggest factor because I do feel that a lot of businesses at least acknowledge now that that is not acceptable and are trying hard.

“It just does show how entrenched some of the unconscious things that people do (are).”

Apart from gender discrimination, key pay gap drivers included career interruptions – often to care for young children or family members – at 20 per cent, down from 25 per cent in 2017, and part-time employment, which accounted for 11 per cent, up from 7 per cent three years earlier

The report showed women at the start of their career ­experienced a pay gap of 6 per cent, and rose to as high as 18 per cent as they progressed through their careers to top management levels.

 

For the purposes of their report, the authors said gender discrimination was the part of the gender pay gap not able to be explained by factors associated with people’s employment, labour force participation, household characteristics and unpaid care and work responsibilities.

“Gender discrimination can materialise in various ways, including the systematic undervaluation of women’s economic contribution, the allocation of less meaningful tasks to women or fewer opportunities for promotion. In the workforce, gender discrimination has been linked to practices such as workplace culture, hiring, promotion and access to training, which can impact human capital,” the report says.

A 2019 study by the WGEA on gender-equitable recruitment and promotion found that women and men were held to different standards in recruitment processes, with women more likely to face tougher evaluation standards, or to have their achievements and qualifications more closely scrutinised.

The study found that women are more likely than men to be penalised for attempting to negotiate for higher pay.

At the national level, women are under-represented in management positions by 7 per cent when compared to their labour force participation.