An analysis of federal public sector workforce data shows the total remuneration average gender pay gap of 13.5% is equivalent to $19,000 a year.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has today released a scorecard summarising its analysis of 2022 Commonwealth government employer data. Among its findings is a statistic that women working in the federal public sector earn 86 cents for every dollar men earn.
This represents a gender pay gap (total remuneration average) of 13.5% — outperforming the private sector by 8.2 percentage points.
Speaking to The Mandarin ahead of the data release, WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge said more than a third of government employer organisations were within a 5% range of zero — or no gender pay gap.
“Many agencies are not far from that, so I think we can aspire to continue to bring down the gender pay gaps and this report shows some broad ways,” Wooldridge said.
“Of course, each individual agency doing their own analysis will understand the specifics in their context of what they need to change and how that can be further achieved.”
This is the first time WGEA has examined gender equality data provided by 116 Commonwealth public sector agencies against six indicators.
The indicators include workforce composition, composition of governing bodies of relevant employees, equal remuneration, availability of flexible work arrangements, consultation with employees about workplace gender equality, as well as sexual harassment and discrimination.
“The agencies who are covered by the APS Act, and therefore report to the APSC, and then [the commission] compiles that information and pass the information we need — as a subset of that onto us,” Wooldridge said, adding that where possible WGEA did not want to double the reporting burden.
“Then agencies report the remaining information, including on their policies and strategies, directly to us as part of the overall reporting process.”
Among the key takeaways from the report findings are that men are 2.5 times more likely to be in the highest paying quartile (compared to 1.9 times in the private sector) of workers.
WGEA noted this was a reflection in part of certain highly paid non-manager roles like professionals, trades and technicians that were more likely to be dominated by men.
The data also showed public sector management positions are balanced overall with close to half (48%) of federal agencies having a gender-balanced management team. This compared with 27% in the private sector.
From Thursday, the WGEA data explorer will publish individual gender equality outcomes for Commonwealth agencies, including 37 public sector employers who have never before participated in the reporting regime.
This includes workplaces such as NBN Co, CSIRO, the Australian Federal Police, the Reserve Bank and Australia Post.
Additional information about Commonwealth public sector employer gender pay gaps will be published for the first time in early 2025.
Wooldridge observed that the trends expressed by the scorecard data would be useful for high-level workforce policies and the unique needs of individual agencies.
It was, however, critical for change on the gender pay gap to be driven internally by local agencies, she added, where HR professionals best understood particular challenges and dynamics at play.
“The scorecard is valuable for the APSC. Although they have a lot of information, this will add further insights, especially around policies and practices,” Wooldridge said.
“We [also then] get an expanded picture of the broader public sector [in this scorecard], including the ABC and NDIA that we haven’t had before, that enables policymakers to sort of have that broader context.”
Expanded reporting requirements to the WGEA annual data collection follow the implementation of recommendations made by the Respect@Work report and the subsequent Anti-discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect@Work) Bill 2022.
Wooldridge said more needed to be done at the individual workplace level to bridge the gap between policies designed to close the gender pay gap, strategy and meaningful action.
“In some cases, agencies have said to us that they weren’t doing gender pay gap analysis, or they weren’t translating individual policies and practices because there’s a broader APS-wide policy that might be in place,” Wooldridge said.
“It’s that translation into: ‘That might be all well and good but what does that mean for our agency, and the particular dynamics within [our workplace], that we need to emphasise perhaps more than we would otherwise?’
“Often a culture shift [is required first] and also, active promotion and engagement and support for how things might be changing,” she said.
