Months of extra work for ‘equal’ female pay

Women are paid 14 per cent less than men on average, a gender pay gap of $253.60 per week.

Workplace Gender Equality Agency director Libby Lyons. Picture: Luke Bowden

Women are paid 14 per cent less than men on average, a gender pay gap of $253.60 per week.

The new numbers make Friday­, August­ 28, Equal Pay Day, with women having to work an extra 59 days from the end of the 2019-20 financial year, on average, to earn the same as men earned in the year.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency has crunched the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data to reach the 2020 figure, which it said is difficult to compare year-on-year because of the impact of COVID on employment­ across the country.

WGEA director Libby Lyons said COVID-19 was hurting women more in terms of impact on work. “More Australian women than men have lost their jobs since COVID-19 struck,” she said. “A number of female­-domin­ated industries have suffered­ the worst job losses.

The national gender pay gap measures the difference between the average weekly full-time base salary earnings of women and men, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings. It is a measure of women’s overall position in the paid workforce and does not compare like roles.

On average, women working full-time earned $1558.40 while men working full-time earned $1812. Ms Lyons said in the previous big economic shock, the global financial crisis, the gender pay gap rose from 15.6 per cent in 2007 to 17.9 per cent in 2009.

“It took us 10 years to bring that pay gap back down to where it is today,” she said. “We cannot afford to see a repeat of this as we face our first economic recession in almost 30 years. It will be a disaster for the economy and a calam­ity for Australian women.”

University of Sydney acad­em­ic Rae Cooper, co-director of the Women, Work and Leadership Research Group, said a “gender lens’’ needed to be applied to the impact of COVID-19 and on recovery plans.