Gender pay gap narrows but parity remains elusive

Poppy Johnston | February 23, 2023

Australia’s gender pay gap has shrunk to its narrowest on record but women are still earning around $250 less per week on average than men.

Numbers crunched by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency based on official earnings data found the pay gap had tightened from 14.1 per cent in August last year to 13.3 per cent in February.

As of November, the average woman working full-time earned $1653 a week compared to the $1907 average earning for men.

This amounts to women earning 87 cents to every dollar a man makes. 

West Australian women experience the biggest pay gap at 22.1 per cent, followed by Queensland at 14.6 per cent.

Women working in “professional, scientific and technical services” experienced the largest divergence in base salary from their male counterparts at 25.3 per cent.

The pay gap is also larger in the private sector, at 16.1 per cent, compared to the public sector at 11.2 per cent.

The agency’s gender pay data is calculated using the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ full-time weekly base salary released in August and February. 

Science in Australia Gender Equity chief executive Janin Bredehoeft said the pay gap was tracking in the right direction but now was not the time to become complacent. 

“The data only includes the base salary of full-time employees, so it is highly likely that remuneration gaps, and pay gaps for part-time and casual employees may not have changed at all,” she said.

“This is concerning when we consider that women are more likely to work part-time or casual jobs.”

The agency also calculates the national pay gap separately using annual employer census data which includes remuneration, part-time and casual employees and tends to come in significantly higher than with the ABS data.