Australian men are twice more likely to be highly paid than women, a government report has found.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) on Friday published its latest data on the gender pay gap.
Based on the earnings of more than 4 million employees between April 2020 and March 2021, it revealed that men, on average, earn 25,792 Australian dollars (18,371 U.S. dollars) more per year than women.
This equates to a gender pay gap of 22.8 per cent, a slight fall from 23.3 per cent the previous year, meaning that for every 10 Australian dollars a man earned, a woman made 7.72 Australian dollars.
One-third of male employees make more than 120,000 Australian dollars per year, as likely as females, while women are 50 per cent more likely to earn less than 60,000 Australian dollars.
Seventy-three per cent of Australian employers have pay gaps in favour of men while seven per cent favour women and 20 per cent have achieved parity.
“From the very top-down, women are undervalued in Australian businesses and underrepresented where decisions are made,’’ Mary Wooldridge, director of the WGEA, said in a statement.
“Our latest insights show this pattern clearly: 22 per cent of all boards still don’t have a single woman in the room, and about three-quarters of all boards have a vast majority (over 60 per cent) of men.
“Of those heavily male-dominated boards, only 12 per cent have set a target to increase the representation of women, and on average that target is only 35 per cent not even what is generally considered a balanced board,’’ she said.
The construction industry has the biggest gender pay gap, with men earning 30 per cent more on the average than women followed by financial and insurance services (29.5 per cent) and professional.
Also scientific and technical services industries (24.7 per cent), (1 Australian dollar equals 0.71 U.S. dollar).
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