Gender Pay Gap Analysis Guide

What is the gender pay gap?

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average or median earnings of men and women in an organisation. It can be caused by a range of factors, including men dominating higher-paid leadership positions, female-dominated jobs attracting lower wages. It is a good measure of gender equality across a nation, industry or organisation. The gender pay gap is expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings. A positive percentage indicates men are paid more on average than women and a negative percentage indicates women are paid more on average than men. If you don’t know your gender pay gap just yet, calculate it using the equation below.

How is the gender pay gap calculated?

The gender pay gap can be calculated based on the average remuneration, or the median, or “middle”, of a list of remuneration values. Both versions are calculated the same way:

The average gender pay gap is a good measure to consider if you’re interested in remuneration of the group, as a whole. As the average is skewed by exceptionally high or low remuneration, i.e. outlier values, it will show if earnings are particularly concentrated for one gender. For example, it will show if there are more men in higher paying positions. Measuring gender pay gaps by median, i.e. the middle number in the range, allows you to understand the remuneration experience of the typical employee at a workplace.

The WGEA Gender Pay Gap Analysis Guide can help with planning and conducting a gender pay gap analysis. 

This analysis is a critical first step for employers seeking to reduce their gender pay gap. It will help you to locate key areas of gender and remuneration imbalance. 

The Gender Pay Gap Analysis Guide will help you learn how to :

  • collect the data for a pay gap analysis 
  • clean the data to ensure it is accurate
  • calculate gender pay gaps in your workplace
  • identify the most common drivers and how they contribute to the overall gender pay gap.

Employers seeking to understand and reduce their gender pay gap should consider booking a WGEA Gender Pay Gap Analysis Masterclass. This online training, delivered by one of WGEA’s gender equality experts will help you to learn 5-step process to uncover key insights from your data. You can then apply the concepts you learn to uncover the “hotspots” within your own organisation. 


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