Equal Pay Day: EOWA challenges business to close the gender pay gap.
Australian Government
Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency
Media Release: 22 May 2011
Today, the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) highlighted againthe serious issue of gender pay inequity. It announced that Equal Pay Day in Australia in 2011will take place on 1 September and called on business to take action to eliminate this discrimination.
Equal Pay Day, initiated by EOWA in 2008, is an annual event. Australian Bureau of Statisticsfigures released this week show that the average gender pay gap is 17.2%. To close this gap,women would have to work an extra 63 days to match what men earn. Symbolically, Equal PayDay is timed to coincide with the expiry of this extra period calculated from financial year-end.
“Women’s pay has remained between 82-85% of men’s pay since 1990. It’s completely unacceptable that, in 2011, this situation still prevails”
said the recently appointed EOWA Director, Ms Helen Conway.
Survey results released in 2010 of organisations reporting to EOWA1 revealed that less than40% of these organisations conduct an annual gender pay equity analysis. Of the organisationsthat do conduct some kind of analysis, just over half said that their analysis had resulted in anaction plan to address the gender pay gap in their organisation.
“I challenge businesses to step-up and use Equal Pay Day to drive action in their workplaces,”
Ms Conway said.
“Gender pay equity can be a difficult issue to address and EOWA iscommitted to assisting employers take action to achieve equity.”
As announced by the Minister for the Status of Women, Kate Ellis, in March, EOWA will have an enhanced focus on gender pay equity in the coming years under proposed new legislation.EOWA’s latest resource to assist business is an online gender pay equity course, titled “Mind the Gap”.
This course, along with other tools and information, can be found on the EOWA website.
