Australia’s gender pay gap appears to have become another victim of COVID-19.
After narrowing significantly in 2020, the gap widened this year, Ai Group’s chief economist Julie Toth said.
“There are several reasons for this including the composition of job gains and losses during 2020 and 2021,” she said.
“For example, there have been big increases in employment in the construction industry, which is 90% male in Australia.
“The other factor is that during 2020, a lot of businesses implemented pay freezes in some form.
“For example, they didn’t pay bonuses or there wasn’t paid overtime. People didn’t move around on the pay scale.
“So, yes, the pandemic did affect the pay gap.”
The gender pay gap measures the difference between the average earnings of women and men in the workforce on a full-time equivalent basis.
It is not the difference between two people being paid differently for work of comparable value, which is unlawful.
Ms Toth was speaking at Ai Group’s recent webinar, Equal Pay Day: What is the Gender Pay Gap & what can you do to address it?
A survey of people who attended the live event showed just one in five organisations has introduced specific programs or initiatives to address the gap.
The two biggest factors contributing to Australia’s gender pay gap are caring responsibilities and the related time out of the workforce and discrimination.
“While it’s unfortunate these factors cause inequity, they can be addressed,” Ms Toth said.
“The harder factor to address is the gap created by occupational and industrial segregation.
“That’s a tricky one. It goes to the heart of what men and women choose to study, what occupations they choose to go into and why.
“It can take generational change to address those broader workforce segregation issues.”
The latest Australian data continue to show that part-time working rates are significantly higher for women than men in every age group and that men who do work part time are far more likely to be studying than looking after children.
Wendy Larter is Communications Manager at the Australian Industry Group. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a reporter, features writer, contributor and sub-editor for newspapers and magazines including The Courier-Mail in Brisbane and Metro, the News of the World, The Times and Elle in the UK.
