Public sector no guarantee of gender pay equality, new study reveals

Think working in the public service guarantees gender pay equality? Think again.

Gender pay inequality remains an issue in the public service.

Working in the public service is no guarantee of gender equality, with the first analysis of federal public sector remuneration ­revealing women earn on average 86c for every dollar men do.

The data from a Workplace Gender Equality Agency study finds the 13.5 per cent gap equates to an average $19,000 a year, but is better than the private sector pay gap of 21.7 per cent.

But the WGEA study, drawn from de-identified data collected from almost 340,000 federal ­employees and for the first time allowing like-for-like comparisons with the private sector, finds the proportion of management positions is more likely to be gender equal in the commonwealth public service.

Just under half (48 per cent) of commonwealth public sector ­employees work in a gender-balanced management team, compared to 27 per cent in the private sector, the study shows.

There is no difference in the pay packets of the top echelons of the public sector, with men and women in the key management positions paid equally.

However, job specialisation does lead to better pay for men among the highest paid public sector jobs, it shows, with men 2½ times more likely to be in the highest paying quartile, driven by highly paid non-manager roles such as professionals, trades and ­technicians.

WGEA chief executive Mary Wooldridge said the data showed that while the public service ­generally does better on gender pay, equality is still some distance away.

Ms Wooldridge said the public sector was stronger on making clearly articulated commitments to workplace gender equality than the private sector, especially on gender balance in management positions and on flexible workplace arrangements that help women into leadership roles.

Workplace Gender Equality Agency chief executive Mary Wooldridge. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“(But) good policies alone do not translate into outcomes,” she said. “More does need to be done across all employers to continue to reduce the gender pay gap, ­including to combat stereotypes that deter men from taking parental leave and around women in non-manager roles.”

The study notes that two in three employers in the commonwealth public service had conducted a gender pay gap analysis, but only 64 per cent of those had followed up with any action.

Working patterns are also different between the public and private sectors, the study shows.

Women are more likely to work full-time in the commonwealth public sector (73 per cent) compared to private sector ­female workers (59 per cent), which may be attributed to ­flexible working arrangements being more normalised in the public sector.

Men are less likely in the public sector to take up primary carer’s leave (11 per cent) than those working in the private sector (14 per cent), the report finds.

In March the Albanese government committed to pay superannuation on parental leave payments in an effort to bridge the pay inequality gap.