Academics say long working hours to blame for gender pay gap shock
The gender pay gap has widened for the first time since 2013, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s annual employer census has revealed. And university researchers have identified long working hours as the main culprit.
ANU’s Professor Lyndall Strazdins, Dr Ginny Sargent, Helen Skeat, and Amelia Yazidjoglou have told the Senate select committee on work and care that long working hours are now the "predominant driver" of the gender wage gap, making it "impossible" to combine work with care. That makes long hours jobs out of the reach of most Australian women and stops Australian men from providing more care.
The researchers’ submission argued that capping the working week at 38 hours would be a "major step forward for gender equality" and a "feasible, first step towards achieving a modern working week sustainable in a modern, gender mixed labour market".
The census reported that the pay gap between men and women remained at 22.8 per cent last financial year and women earned about $26,600 less than men in 2021-22. The gender pay gap is defined as the difference between the average full-time-equivalent earnings of men and women.
WGEA director, Mary Wooldridge, said 22.8 per cent is “way too high, it’s a massive differential between men and women”.
Professor Strazdins says the Government should work with unions, employers, and industry to “create cultural and regulatory change” to address working hours "creep" because employers are not respecting the 38-hour cap and employees are relying on overtime to make ends meet.
“She said that workers now compete based on how many hours they can work, rather than merit, which disadvantages women who often cannot work longer hours due to caring responsibilities,” Workplace Expressreported.
Strazdins says overtime should not replace a “proper living wage”.
Grattan Institute chief executive Danielle Wood told The Age until more men engage more in care and unpaid work, the gender equality bus is “driving with its handbrake on”.
Men continue to dominate managerial jobs, even in female-dominated industries, because women are under-represented in full-time work, which means they are more likely to be passed over for senior roles. Last financial year, 58 per cent of women were employed part-time or casually.
Ms Wooldridge told SBS News three factors contribute most to the gender pay gap.
"One factor is discrimination and bias toward women in recruitment and promotion and pay rises, the second is the time women take out of the workforce and then come back at a lower wage level or perhaps part-time, and the third is industrial and occupational segregation," she said.
"We have highly feminised industries that tend to be low paid, and highly masculinised industries like mining that tend to be highly paid," she said.
According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2022, Australia ranks 43rd in the world for gender equality.
Ms Wooldridge says workplaces need leadership commitment to gender equality that “permeates all the way through the organisation".
"There needs to be consequences and accountability in relation to performance on gender equality, and we need to do pay gap analysis so we know where the gaps are and then we can diagnose the problems and take action."