31 August 2021
Today, August 31, is Equal Pay Day and alarmingly women have slipped further behind during the pandemic – with the gender pay divide widening by 0.8 per cent during the six months from February 2021 to August 2021.
Using the latest Average Weekly Earnings data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has calculated the new national gender pay gap figure as 14.2%, a rise of 0.8 percentage points over the last six months.
This means Equal Pay Day 2021 will be on 31 August, marking the 61 extra days from the end of the previous financial year that women, on average, must work to earn the same annual pay as men – equating to a difference of $261.50 per week between the sexes. On average, full-time working women earn $13,500 less per year than full-time working men.
However, according to an ACTU analysis, in 10 industries, women have to work as much as double that national average to make the same as men.
The ACTU says women in industries such as science and technology, finance and health care have to work as many as 124 more days than men per year to earn equal pay.
In health care and social services women would have to work an extra 95 days each year to make the same amount as men in the same industry, the ACTU says. It says health care workers, a predominantly female workforce, have been on the frontline of the pandemic. They have been overworked and underpaid, working in understaffed conditions even before the pandemic began.
ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM said the gender pay disparity was “an affront to women everywhere and exposed ongoing systemic discrimination within the workforce’’.
“That the pay gap could widen during the pandemic when women are the major force on the COVID frontline in the form of nurses and aged care workers, and also as the main care providers at home, is a shameful indictment,’’ Ms Dabars said.
“Governments must act to right this wrong. In aged care, again predominantly staffed by women, the ANMF and other unions have called for a 25 per cent wage rise for this woefully underpaid sector.’’
The recent Royal Commission into Aged Care recommended equal pay for the sector, something the Morrison Government has ignored, and which aged care unions including the ANMF are currently campaigning for.
The rise in the national gender pay gap was largely driven by a higher growth in men’s full-time wages (1.8% increase) than women’s (0.9%). The ABS highlights “the high average earnings growth in the Construction industry, which has a high proportion of men” as an explanation for this.
To close the gender pay gap, the union movement is calling for:
- Changes to our workplace laws that make it easier for women to win equal pay, and to reduce insecure work where women are overrepresented.
- Additional government funding to increase actual rates of pay in underpaid, feminised sectors such as nursing, Early Childhood Education and care and aged care, and ensure that NDIS funding protects the wages and job security of workers in the sector.
- Stronger workplace rights for parents and carers, including guaranteed and enforceable access to family friendly working arrangements and 52 weeks of Paid Parental Leave.
- Universal free childcare.
“Today we should all take a moment to acknowledge the fact that there are no industries in Australia where women are paid equally to men,’’ ACTU President Michele O’Neil said.
“It is a disgrace that women have to start each year effectively $13,500 worse off on average than men.
“Women in the workforce are met with so many obstacles; disproportionate caring responsibilities, sexual harassment in the workplace, and a systemic and persistent gender pay gap. The Morrison Government can and must do more to address all these issues.’’