Are we closing the gender wage gap?

ARE WE CLOSING

THE GENDER WAGE GAP?

Words 10 Ellen Media

Why can't a woman be more like a man? Men are so honest, so thoroughly sqaure; Enternally noble, historically fair. Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat. Why can't a women be like that? - Alan Jay Lerner

Rex Harrison famously co-starred with Audrey Hepburn in the 1964 movie My Fair Lady, acting as Dr Henry Higgins a professor of phonetics who transforms and passes the Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle off in society as a duchess. In fact the movie, is a retelling of the George Bernard Shaw’s 1914 Pygmalion. Shaw wanted to write a play advocating for women’s suffrage and the end of Britain’s class system. It was written in a time when women still did not have the right to vote.

Women’s place in society has advanced significantly since 1914 and even since 1964 but gender equality is still something that we strive for. Among the several areas of gender equality that the OECD advocates for is the desire to bridge the gender wage gap.

According to the latest results on research done by the OECD the gender gap wage is closing slowly in most of the 38 member countries but is still extremely disproportionate in some. It you want to be paid well, more like a man, you might just like to head off to Luxembourg, Costa Rica or even Colombia. According to the OECD data, on average women were paid on par with men in Costa Rica in 2019. While in Colombia women were paid slightly above par with men, the Colombian wage date showing women’s wages were on average .1% more than men in 2020. The position is even better in Luxembourg with women’s wages 3.1% above the average wages for men in 2018.

Israel, Japan, and Latvia may be countries you wish to visit but if you are planning a working holiday, based on the OECD’s 2020 data expect to receive at least 20% less than your male colleagues. Korea you will fair even worse at close to 30% disparency in 2020.

While this data may appear dated, it is unlikely to have changed much over the last couple of years due to the economic conditions experienced during COVID-19 lockdowns. The following table represent the OECD’s latest data for each of the 38 member nations and depicts the percentage disparency in the gender wage gap.

Pay Gap Across Australia

In Australia, the wage gap appears to be improving. The OECD recorded the 2020 wage gap at around the 9.9%, being at the lowest in the 45 years of data collection. The data shows that over the 20 year period between 2000 and 2019 the wage gap in Australia has fluctuated between 11.54% and 18.0%. We may have a way to go yet, but the data shows a trending towards bridging the gap. So women of Australia can truly be proud as we sing Advance Australia Fair.

Yet, our female neighbours living in the Land of the Long White Cloud fair a lot better than we “Aussies”. New Zealand’s gender wage gap sits at a low 4.58%.

This analysis of the OECD data has only considered wages for employees and not the self-employed. Some ember countries including New Zealand, capture and report separate data for the self-employed. This is not something that Australia reports to the OECD. There is a much greater disparency in the gender wage gap for those nations that do provide separate self-employed data. And while mostly female employees on average sit under the 20% wage gap, those member countries that reported on self-employed, showed significant gaps. According, the Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency, the gender pay gap is influenced by: • Discrimination and bias in hiring and pay decisions • Women and men working in different industries and different jobs, with femaledominated industries and jobs attracting lower wages • Women’s disproportionate share of unpaid caring and domestic work • Lack of work place flexibility to accommodate caring and other responsibilities, especially in senior roles • Women’s greater time out of the workforce impacting career progression and opportunities.

The WGEA reports the gender gap is lowest in South Australia at just 7% and highest in Western Australia hovering around 22%. It might be safe to say that South Australia is doing the best as reducing the pay gap but this chart only highlights the average gap across the States and Territories and does not look at the gap at a jobs performed level.