Australia’s Gender Equality Scorecard
Australia has released the latest results of its 2022-23 Employer Census, demonstrating a 1.1 percentage point drop in the total remuneration average gender pay gap over the last year. The Gender Equality Scorecard, published on 28 November, is an annual report published by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) providing an update on the state of workplace gender equality in Australia.
The Scorecard sets out the gender equality outcomes of 5,135 employers, covering 4.8 million employees. Collecting data on employee composition and pay, as well as workplace policies and practices, the WGEA Employer Census delivers a world-leading dataset on workplace gender equality.
The Gender Equality Scorecard sets out a unique record of progress on workplace gender equality. It highlights what employers have achieved, draws attention to areas requiring employer focus, improvement, and action, and creates a historical record to build on over time.
The decline in the gender pay gap was largest drop in 8 years. The key driver of the lower gender pay gap is an increase in the proportion of women in management, which increased to 42% in 2023. The results also show the proportion of women being promoted and appointed at manager level is higher than the proportion of women managers overall. As this trend continues, WGEA expects to see the gender pay gap continue to fall.
However, Australia notes that there is still room for improvement, specifically in the proportion of women in leadership, such as the number of women CEOs and women members on boards. WGEA also highlighted the finding that employees who choose to work part-time are facing a ‘promotion cliff’, with just 7% of all manager roles offered part-time.
WGEA collated all the results of reporting into an updated and improved Data Explorer platform to give employers, employees, policy-makers and researchers deeper insights into gender equality performance and outcomes. The Data Explorer allows users to explore the gender equality outcomes for industries, industry sub-divisions, groups of employers by size, and individual employers. It also allows users to compare results across employers and industries. We encourage you to explore the tool, and it is where WGEA will publish employer gender pay gaps for the first time on 27 February 2024.