Mary Wooldridge,head of the government body tasked with collecting and publishing the data,is cautious to avoid describing the disclosure process as a naming and shaming exercise.
Workplace Gender Equality Agency chief executive Mary Wooldridge says the data will arm employees with information to inform their decisions about their employment.Paul Jeffers
But she is adamant this new measure of transparency will accelerate change and give women the information they need to hold their employers accountable.
“Employers have the choice,of course,in terms of how they respond to it,” said Wooldridge,chief executive of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).
“But in a tight labor market with big competition for talent and often employees being so fundamental to the success of businesses,it’s very risky for employers not to take this issue seriously.
“With more transparency,it’ll just be further information that’s arming employees,prospective employees,investors and so on with information that informs their decision-making about their involvement with that company.”
Data shows that women retire with less superannuation than men due to gender-based inequities.
There are different methodologies for the wage gap. Last week the Australian Bureau of Statistics released average new weekly earnings data showing the gender pay gap is 12 per cent,calculated from full-time workers and their base salaries.
Wooldridge said that from WGEA’s perspective,the best measure was total remuneration – which told a different story.
“So not just by salary,but any other earnings like overtime,bonuses and superannuation that sits on top of that as well,” she said. “And secondly,that all workers[not just full-time] are included. So when we look at those numbers,the median national gender pay gap is 19 per cent.”
The company data will be published on the at 12.01am Tuesday,showing the employer gender pay gaps by median,and the gender composition and average remuneration per pay quartile of every company with more than 100 employees. From next year,WGEA will also publish average gender pay gap data,and employers have been given notice they will be required to publicly report remuneration for chief executives,heads of business and casual managers.
The median is the figure in the middle of the dataset or,as WGEA expresses it,“the number that falls into the middle when everyone’s wages are lined up from smallest to largest”.
Tuesday’s data will show an individual employer’s median gender pay gap expressed as the percentage difference between women’s and men’s earnings at an organisation. The reporting period is from April 1,2022 to March 31,2023.
Companies have been reporting this data to WGEA on a confidential basis for years,but changes to the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 passed by parliament in March 2023 require it to be made public.
Consulting firm Deloitte,which employs more than 13,000 people,says its median gender pay gap stands at 16.7 per cent. It’s a figure that the firm’s chief people and purpose officer,Pip Dexter,says is about 2 per cent lower than the industry median.
She said making the data public on a national platform would act as a form of “peer pressure” for companies to do more to close the gap.
“It is a good result. But we’re not satisfied,” Dexter said.
“Our ambition would be definitely to get it into single figures. But the only way to do that is to shift the gender representation,and that really means that we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got sufficient females in our pipeline.”
Dexter said the gender pay gap should not be confused with pay equity – that is,men and women being paid the same for performing the same role.
“That’s something that we look at twice a year. We ensure that there’s less than 1 per cent difference between genders for the same or similar roles,” she said.
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