Examples Of Gender Inequality In The Workplace

Gender inequality in the workplace is the structural gap between how men and women fare at work, measured in pay, seniority, access to opportunity and the share of unpaid work that falls outside the job. It overlaps with gender discrimination but is not the same thing. Inequality can persist without a single unlawful decision being made, which is exactly why it is hard to shift.

Examples that show up in Australian organisations include:

• A pay gap between men and women doing comparable work, or across the organisation as a whole
• Women concentrated in lower-paid functions and under-represented in senior and line roles
• Flexible and part-time work quietly treated as a signal of lower ambition
• Career interruption for parental leave that is never recovered in pay or progression
• Office housekeeping, note taking and event organising falling to the same people every time
• Performance language that rewards assertiveness in men and marks it down in women

The gap is measurable, and the number you quote depends on what is being measured. Workplace Gender Equality Agency data puts the private sector average gender pay gap at 21.1% on total remuneration, which means women earn about 79c for every dollar men earn, or roughly $28,356 less over a year. The median gap sits at 16.4%. The Commonwealth public sector gap is much narrower at 6.4%. The often-quoted national figure of 11.5% is a different measure again, drawn from Australian Bureau of Statistics data on base salary for full-time workers only, so it excludes overtime, bonuses and part-time and casual pay. Employers with 100 or more employees must report annually under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, and individual employer gaps are published.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency publishes the national, industry and employer data. This is general information rather than legal advice.

The articles tagged here cover what gender inequality looks like at work and what moves the numbers. To build the underlying behaviours, see Sentrient’s equal employment opportunity course and sexual harassment course, or the full range of workplace compliance courses.