Employers efforts recognised as gender pay gap narrows
Australian employers are seeking to narrow the gender pay gap by increasing the number of women in leadership positions and creating flexible workplaces.
Analysis by the Agency for Gender Equality in the Workplace found that the gender pay gap fell by 0.7 percentage points to 21.1 per cent from 21.8 per cent in 2024.
This means that women earn, on average, 78.9 cents for every $1 that men earn; That’s a difference of $28,356 per year.
However, the gender pay gap at the top level in CEO salaries has increased by 1.2 percentage points to 26.2 percent in the last 12 months.
Female chief executives earn an average of $83,493 less than men in base salary; When retirement, bonuses, overtime and benefits are included, the difference increases to $185,335.
The gender pay gap measures how valued men’s and women’s labor is and shows differences in earnings across organisations, sectors and workforces.
The agency’s 2024/25 gender equality scorecard showed improvement in the number of women in leadership roles, on boards and in the top quartile of earners.
Chief executive Mary Wooldridge said the progress showed employers were working to meet staff expectations for fairer workplaces for everyone.
“Employers are shifting the dial towards fairness, which is helping to close the gender pay gap,” she said.
“The narrowing of the pay gap and modest improvements to gender balance in leadership roles are supported by more employers taking action and having policies in place that can break gender norms.”
When health technology company Medtronic realized its gender equality goals were falling behind, it decided to tackle the problem head-on.
“We produced a survey of our female employee base that had a response rate of more than 50 per cent, so we were able to collect some solid data,” senior regional sales manager Amanda Peirce told AAP.
“Nearly half of our employees said they faced barriers to career progression.”
Under Ms. Peirce’s co-leadership, the company created a development program for female employees called EmpowerME.
Designed to increase the confidence and visibility of women at all levels of the company through skills development, financial training and one-on-one coaching opportunities.
EmpowerME participant Amanda Cruz said the mentoring and coaching aspects were life-changing professionally and personally.
“I then applied these learnings when I led the group, had networking opportunities to meet with staff in the field and in hospitals, contribute to award-winning initiatives, and advance my career,” he said.
Now in its third year, Ms. Peirce said the results of the program have exceeded everyone’s expectations.
“We saw female leadership in the organization increase from 35 percent to 48.5 percent,” he said.
“We collected a wealth of data showing increases in overall confidence, skills, promotion opportunities and career commitment.”
Australia’s Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national news channel and has been providing accurate, reliable and fast-paced news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We inform Australia.
