A report released this week reveals that the gender pay gap manifests even among top tier managers in Australian organisations, with men being paid on average $100,000 more per year than women. The report, Gender Equity Insights 2016: Inside Australia’s Gender Pay Gap, also revealed for the first time a measurable link between increasing gender diversity on boards and lower pay gaps for managers.
It found that increasing the number of women on boards from zero to a 50:50 balance was associated with a 6.3 percentage point reduction in the gender pay gap for full-time managers.
WGEA Director Libby Lyons said the results showed that there is still a lot of work ahead of all of us, including female-dominated industries, to improve the persistance of the gender pay gap but that getting more women on boards was clearly a big step in the right direction.
“I urge all employers and boards to look closely at their own pay data and recruitment strategies to uncover and address gender pay gaps,” she said.
The report is a collaboration between the WGEA and expert researchers at the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre.
Other key findings include:
- Female full-time key management personnel earned on average $244,569 annually, while men earned $343,269
- Managerial gender pay gaps are smaller in male-dominated industries than female-dominated industries
- The average part-time gender pay gap slightly favours women at -4.4%. Overall, part-time roles are dominated by women and significantly lower-paid (on a full-time equivalent basis) than full-time roles.
