Major new research has found that men are paid more than women in 98% of occupations, with female workers in Australia typically paid 70 cents for every $1 earned by their male colleague after a decade in work.<\/p>\n
The 30% average pay gap across workplaces identified in Jobs and Skills Australia\u2019s new report<\/a> stretches to nearly 40% for First Nations women.<\/p>\n Megan Lilly, a JSA deputy commissioner, said the fact that men were paid more than women on average in almost all of the 688 occupations analysed in the landmark report was even more remarkable when considering the substantial range of workplaces where women dominate.<\/p>\n Experts blame the persistent gender pay gap<\/a> in large part on the \u201cmotherhood penalty\u201d<\/a> \u2013 the phenomenon where Australian women\u2019s earnings drop by 55% in the five years after having their first child.<\/p>\n A higher likelihood of returning to part-time rather than full-time work, and missed opportunities for promotion during time away, mean that penalty is only slightly improved 10 years after giving birth.<\/p>\n Less than two weeks out from Jim Chalmers\u2019 economic reform roundtable, Lilly said \u201cpoliticians and policymakers need to grapple with these findings and find strategies and policies to deal with economic inequality\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cGender occupational segregation is actually a handbrake on our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n More gender-balanced occupations tended to have more equal pay, but the research revealed these jobs were in a minority: only one in five Australian workers were in occupations with a relatively equal mix of men and women.<\/p>\n The report also showed that gender segregation in Australian workplaces was proving stubborn to shift: in about seven in 10 occupations there had been no progress on gender balance in 15 years.<\/p>\n Ambulance officers and paramedics, dentists, and barristers were roles that had become less male-dominated, while vets and school principals had moved from gender parity to moderately higher shares of women.<\/p>\n But gender segregation was most acute in lower-skilled occupations, where there had been little change in the mix of men and women in a decade-and-a-half.<\/p>\n While no occupation showed meaningfully higher pay for women over men, the report found that occupational pay gaps widen to be at their worst among the most segregated occupations<\/a> \u2013 regardless of whether they were male- or female-dominated.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Female registered nurses, for example, were paid $89,720 on average, or 21% less than the $114,420 typically paid to their male peers. That\u2019s despite women accounting for 90% of that workforce and only working 10% fewer hours.<\/p>\n Even in the case of childcare \u2013 where almost the entire workforce were women \u2013 men were typically paid 14% more: $56,240, versus $48,340, according to the JSA\u2019s analysis of Australian Taxation Office data.<\/p>\n Amid a nationwide shortage of workers in key areas of the economy, the report also showed that the most gender segregated occupations \u2013 such as in blue collar construction, and \u201cpink\u201d collar nursing and aged care \u2013 were also where these labour shortages were at their most acute.<\/p>\n Lilly said essentially excluding half of the population from certain occupations was part of the problem.<\/p>\n \u201cGender segregation is exacerbating skill shortages, exacerbating the pay gap, and too many cohorts of women are disadvantaged. And this is all at the expense of a more inclusive and productive society,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cFix segregation and you fix occupational shortages and gender pay gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Major new research has found that men are paid more than women in 98% of occupations, with female…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-126238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114987317638988322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}