Gender Wage Gap In Australia

The Gender-Wage Gap

The gender wage gap is often perceived as and old fashion occurrence, however, the inequality between men and women still does exist in today’s workforce. Australia’s gender-wage may not be as prominent as it was in the past and few figures conclude that the gap is narrowing but women are still being discriminated against (McGregor & Still 1996). To reduce and finally demolish the gender wage gap, the Australian government needs to take action and regulate laws in employment relations and to stop discrimination against women in the workforce who have the same or equal qualifications as men do. This essay will overall discuss theories what the Australian government will need to address in order to get rid of the gender
wage gap and what action needs to take place to rule out discrimination in the workplace.

The gender wage gap can occur for many reasons, but the most common reason is because of the stereotype of women and their domestic responsibilities (Leutwiler & Kleiner, 2003).
According to Leutwiler & Kleiner (2003), “discrimination is the provision of unequal benefits to people of different ascriptive statuses despite identical qualifications and merit”. In this sense discrimination against women has created the gender-wage gap. For gender discrimination to exist in the workplace a man and woman must have the same or equal qualifications for a specific job, but with a different pay. Kidd and Ferko (2001) described the gender wage gap as “ differences in human capital related characteristics and an unexplained portion attributed to discrimination. Clearly, stated is that discrimination is in fact a contributor to the wage
gap.

Another reason that the gender wage gap still exists is because women have more interrupted careers, when they are obligated to take care of their children. Although women now have increasing tertiary qualifications, they still lack in significant work experience. As well as shorter job training the men because of their interrupted careers, further explains the wage gap in Australia. (Jamali, 2008).

Furthermore, it is said that women are much less likely to negotiate their wages with the employer prior to accepting the job. So many women are unaware that they are being discriminated against because they do not know that males are being paid more for the same job. Also post global financial crisis women were almost 5 times as likely to be made redundant as opposed to men (Lawyer, 2010).

In 2005 women were paid 4 percent less then the average full-time working man. However, in the same year the Australian Bureau of Statistics concluded that over 51 percent of tertiary graduates were female (Kee, 2006). Meaning that higher qualified women were being paid less than men, evident that the gender-wage gap still does exist in the Australian workplace and that women are still being discriminated against. The gender-wage gap in Australia is predominantly seen in higher managerial positions known as the “glass ceiling”. The glass ceiling refers to the fact that woman in high employment positions are at some point overtaken by a male, so there’s only a certain level of authority a woman can gain in employment. The “sticky floor” theory suggests the opposite of the, where woman a pushed down doing the lowest positional jobs (Kee, 2006). In both situations there is still a discriminatory act that needs to be fixed.

Women often have to take more time off work due to domestic responsibilities specifically child rearing and often have a decreased waged compared to men because of it. This is an example of gender discrimination, where women are being paid less for having more responsibilities. Men do not have this responsibility, so there is no reason why women should be penalized for this. “Economists describe wage discrimination by comparing wages for equally productive workers” (Kunze 2006).

During the 1970’s the Australian government passed a legislation promoting equal pay for women known as the “Equal Pay Act” (Daly & Mumford, 2006).
The 1970’s was a time where feminism was increasing and more and more women were demanding more equal rights. Women wanted to be equal to men as they were now doing the same jobs and acquiring the same educational qualifications. So It is reasonable to say that women should be getting equal pay to men as they provide the same labor required for the same occupation. However, more recently to avoid inequality was John Howard’s 2006 Work Choices Act. The act was designed to regulate the workforce and protect all employees including women. The general rule for this act was “equal pay for equal work (Lyons & Smith, 2007). Women’s wages were lesser than men because the general perception of a household would be the male as the main breadwinner, while the women takes on domestic responsibilities. However, households have now become more modernized, where some women now take the role of the main breadwinner. Therefore, wages need to be equal between men and
woman.

Australia has a history of very centralized wages, if the government moves away from that and become more decentralized, wages can be spread out more fairly to lower income earners like women. Apart of the low income earners are specifically non-unionized women (Cockfield, 2011). It can be said that by women that are not in a union do not know their full rights and often don’t know that their being discriminated against. Women should also become much more aware of their employment status and their rights for equal pay. The Employer should also have a responsibility to assure that there is no discrimination when bargaining with women and make sure that all pay between men and women are equal for the same job and qualification characteristics that are being represented.

The workforce gender wage gap in Australia has been slimming over the years, but is still not enough for women to gain ultimate equality. Women are still underpaid and discriminated against in the workplace, which is limiting them to gain higher employment positions. Women have proven to do the same tasks as men at the same standards and should be paid the same wage. Also, statistics demonstrate that women in Australia had a higher rate of tertiary education and still were being paid less then men. Domestic responsibilities and child obligations should not be a factor in determining a women’s wage. John Howard’s Work Choices Act 2006, has attempted to close this gap by having fixed wages, but failed. Another alternate solution has to be put in order for women to have the same an equal wages as men.

Reference:

Anne Daly & Karen Mumford, 2006, The Gender wage gap in four countries, Blackwell Publishing

Astrid Kunze, 2006, Gender wage gap studies: consistency and decomposition

Jamali, 2008, The gender pay gap revisited, Emerald group Publishing

Jenfier Leutwiler & Brian Kleiner, 2003, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An international journal, Emerald Group Publishing

Joo Kee, 2006, Glass Ceiling or Sticky floor? Exploring the Australian gender pay gap, Blackwell Publishing

Judy McGregor, 1996, The earnings gap and the managerial woman in transition, Emerald Group Publishing

Lawyer, 2011, Women must push equality issue, Centaur Communications

Michael Kidd & Ivan Ferko, 2001, The employment effects of the gender discrimination in Australia, Blackwell Publishing

Michael Lyons & Meg Smith, 2007, Work Choices and Pay Equity, Hecate Press

Sandra Cockfield, 2011, Assessing the impact of employment regulation, University of NSW