IPA

The long road to gender equity

VICKI STYLIANOU is advocacy and policy group executive at the Institute of Public Accountants. Over the decades, women have fought for and gained many rights, recognition and opportunities. However, there is still a long way to go in areas such as closing the gender pay gap and overturning unconscious bias. Let’s consider some of the statistics in Australia.

Each year the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) publishes the annual key findings from the reporting data in the WGEA Gender Equality Scorecard. It reports that the current gender pay gap is 22.8 per cent.

The scorecard includes the latest figures on the gender pay gap, industry comparisons, women’s workforce participation, women’s representation in leadership and emerging trends in employer action.

Women are underrepresented in key decisionmaking roles across almost all industries in the Australian workforce. While women make up half of the employees in the 2020/21 WGEA data set (51 per cent), they comprise only: • 19.4 per cent of chief executives, • 32.5 per cent of key management positions, • 33 per cent of board members, and • 18 per cent of board chairs.

At current rates, it will take 25 years to close the gender pay gap.

WGEA’s data set is based on mandatory reporting by non-public sector employers with 100 or more employees who must submit their gender equality metrics to WGEA annually. The report found: • over 85 per cent of Australian employers still pay men more than women on average, • women were earning, on average, about 77 per cent of men’s earnings last year, • three in five employers offer paid parental leave, • primary carer’s leave is becoming increasingly available to both men and women, but only 12 per cent of those who took it last year were men, • men are twice as likely to be highly paid than women, • men are twice as likely as women to be in the top earnings quartile, earning $120,000 and above, while women are 50 per cent more likely than men to be in the bottom quartile, earning $60,000 and less, • there has been a sharp rise in the availability of paid domestic violence leave during the pandemic, and • over half (51 per cent) of employers offer paid domestic violence leave (compared to 12 per cent in 2015/16). In five years, the availability of paid domestic violence leave has increased fourfold.

Women make up 42 per cent of all employees, but only make up one-quarter of executives and only 10 per cent of chief executives for large, for-profit companies. For women of colour and people of marginalised gender, these numbers are significantly smaller. Even in female-dominated industries, women are less likely to hold leadership roles.

Closing the gender pay gap Research shows that increasing the representation of women in executive leadership roles is associated with declining organisational gender pay gaps, specifically: • having equal representation of women on governing boards leads to a 6.3 per cent reduction in the gender pay gap for full-time managers, and • organisations with balanced representation of women in executive leadership roles have pay gaps half the size of those with the least representation of women in leadership.

Based on the observations of leading practice made for the report, the following 10-step recipe for getting more women into leadership was designed by WGEA: 1. Build a strong case for change. 2. Role-model a commitment to diversity, including with business partners. 3. Redesign roles and work to enable flexible work and normalise uptake across levels and genders. 4. Actively sponsor rising women. 5. Set a clear diversity aspiration, backed up by accountability. 6. Support talent through life transitions. 7. Ensure the infrastructure is in place to support a more inclusive and flexible workplace. 8. Challenge traditional views of merit in recruitment and evaluation. 9. Invest in frontline leader capabilities to drive cultural change. 10. Develop rising women and ensure experience in key roles.

It is a perennial policy of governments to try and boost workforce participation by making it more attractive for women to return to work. Given the current chronic skills shortage, these policies received more attention in the October budget, which promised $4.7 billion in childcare support to be spent over four years from 2022/23. Government modelling indicates it will assist more than 1.2 million eligible families and add the equivalent of 37,000 extra full-time workers. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find those workers. Ensuring pay equity and recognising women leaders would also go a long way to achieving greater female participation in the workforce and reaping the benefits it brings.