Excellent reforms have been instituted by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) to accelerate workplace gender equality in Australia, enabled by legislative amendments Reforms will improve transparency, accountability & action on gender equality in workplaces.
The Albanese Government is taking action to improve workplace gender equality, with the gender pay gaps for nearly 5,000 Australian private sector employers today being published for the first time.
It comes after Labor’s reforms passed the Parliament last year, a key driver for employer action to speed up progress to close the gender pay gap in the workplace.
The Minister for Women, Senator Katy Gallagher, said the publication of employer gender pay gaps is a pivotal moment for gender equality in Australia.
“The release of employer gender pay gaps marks a historic step towards transparency and accountability in addressing gender inequality,” Minister Gallagher said.
“The gender pay gap is a persistent and complex problem that costs the Australian economy $51.8 billion every year,” Minister Gallagher said.
“Transparency and accountability are critical for driving change. By shining a light on gender pay gaps at an employer level, we are arming individuals and organisations with the evidence they need to take meaningful action to accelerate closing the gender pay gap in Australian workplaces.”
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has published base salary and total remuneration median gender pay gaps for private sector employers in Australia with 100 or more employees.
The results show that:
- 30% of employers have a median gender pay gap between the target range of -5% and +5%.
- 62% of median employer gender pay gaps are over 5% and in favour of men.
- The rest (8%) are less than -5% and in favour of women.
- Across all employers, 50% have a gender pay gap of over 9.1%.
For all employers, the publication of their gender pay gaps and workforce composition is an opportunity to assess their performance on gender equality and take action to improve it.
The WGEA Data Explorer allows users to explore the gender equality outcomes for industries, industry sub-divisions, groups of employers by size and individual employers. Use this tool to gain deeper insights into gender equality performance and outcomes and compare results across employers and industries.
Companies’ gender pay gaps are available on the Workplace Gender Equality Agency website: