What are men and women paid at your workplace?

The gender pay gap at Australia’s fertility clinics is more than double the national average, while the business with the worst pay disparity in favour of men in the country is a women’s ultrasound clinic run by Monash IVF, according to fresh figures showing slow national progress on narrowing the gap.

Australian women earn $28,425 less than men on average, according to the latest Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA) national snapshot, which details what the gender pay gap is at 7800 companies where more than 5 million Australians work.

Fertility clinics had some of the largest gender pay gaps. Credit: Craig Abraham

Nearly three-quarters of the businesses surveyed, on average, pay men more than women. High-paying employers are the most likely to have a gender pay gap in favour of men and a larger gender pay gap, while just a third of staff paid in the upper quartile are women.

The average gender pay gap, including base salary, bonuses and superannuation, was 21.7 per cent in 2023-24. Construction was the biggest laggard, where the gap was 25.3 per cent, followed by financial and insurance services (22.2 per cent), and rental, hiring and real estate services (21.2 per cent).

WGEA considers any pay gap below -5 per cent is in favour of women, while any pay gap above 5 per cent is in favour of men. Anything between -5 and 5 per cent is considered neutral.

Although public administration and safety (2.1 per cent), and healthcare and social assistance (3.7 per cent), had the lowest pay gaps, fertility clinics ranked significantly above the healthcare industry and national average.

The average gender pay gap at Monash IVF Group, where 93 per cent of staff are women, was 44.2 per cent, according to WGEA. The disparity between male and female staff at its subsidiary clinic Adelaide Fertility Centre ballooned out to 62.7 per cent, while it was 37 per cent at Monash IVF in Melbourne.

The group also runs the Sydney Women’s Ultrasound Clinic, which has the largest gender pay gap in favour of men, in which female staff, on average, earn 22¢ for every dollar their male colleagues take home. While 97 per cent of staff at the clinic are women, 88 per cent who are in the upper quartile pay range are women.

“Monash IVF Group is committed to actively identifying and removing gender barriers and pay gaps and enhancing our policies, practices and benefits to support all genders,” the group’s chief people and culture officer, Peggy North, said.

“The gender pay gap identified at these organisations are the result of highly specialised roles that are currently held by male employees and skew the overall results.”

The pay gap at Adora Fertility, where 92 per cent of the workforce is female, was 28.2 per cent. No.1 Fertility was the only fertility centre where the pay gap was in favour of women (23 per cent). While 96 per cent of staff are women, all staff paid in the upper quartile were women.

No. 1 Fertility owner and medical director Dr Lynn Burmeister said specialised healthcare was often dominated by men, but the business’s scientific director, head embryologist and senior fertility nurses were all women.

“We believe in placing the right people in the right job, and for us it’s simply worked out that we have more female than male staff,” she said.

New figures on the gender pay gap have been released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

WGEA chief executive Mary Wooldridge said the second national snapshot was an opportunity for Australian businesses to analyse their results, compare these to their peers and begin implementing strategies to drive down the gender pay gap.

“The challenge with this is there is no silver bullet, and there’s no immediate couple of things that employers can do that fundamentally shifts it,” Wooldridge said. “This is definitely a journey … but as we continue to see the gender pay gap come down, that’s certainly where we believe this will go.”

WGEA for the first time published the average gender pay gap after releasing the median last year. Wooldridge said the average figure was a more accurate reflection of the pay dynamics in a workforce. However, it showed the mid-point of the median pay fell 0.2 percentage points to 8.9 per cent.

The gender pay gap is not about equal pay, which has been law for more than 50 years. Instead, it is about the difference between the average earnings of men and women in the workforce. Women tend to have higher rates of part-time work, while men also have the capacity to earn more lucrative bonuses because of historic norms that force women to take time out of the workforce for caregiving responsibilities.

Of the 10 largest publicly listed companies, only CSL (4 per cent) had a pay gap considered neutral by WGEA. Macquarie Group, whose female chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake is the highest-paid CEO at $29.4 million, had a gender pay gap of 30.3 per cent.

Goodman Group, which develops and manages real estate, had a pay disparity of 66.8 per cent, while Commonwealth Bank (22.3 per cent) was the worst of the big four banks.

Nine Entertainment Co (which owns this masthead) had the largest gender pay gap, at 14.9 per cent, among its media rivals.

The gender pay gap at Slater and Gordon (23.9 per cent), which is dealing with the fallout of an email scandal in which the salaries of all 900 employees were emailed out to staff, as well as Maurice Blackburn (20.5 per cent) was among the highest in the legal industry, while Maddocks (0.2 per cent) and Gilbert + Tobin (0.9 per cent) had achieved gender pay parity, according to the data.

In the sporting leagues, Rugby Australia (24 per cent) and National Rugby League (12.8 per cent) had the largest gender pay gap, while only the Australian Football League (-2 per cent) had a gap in favour of women.

The organisation with the largest pay gap in favour of women was Perilya Broken Hill, a mining company based in NSW.

Just five per cent of its employees were women, with only 2 per cent paid in the upper quartile, but women, on average, earned 90 per cent more than their male colleagues, according to the WGEA data.

Adora Fertility and Perilya Broken Hill were contacted for comment.

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.