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Today the Workplace Gender Equality Agency can announce that Equal Pay Day falls on 4 September this year. Equal Pay Day is a symbolic day marking the additional time from the end of the previous financial year that women must work to earn the same as men.

Using Average Weekly Earnings data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning the Agency calculates the national gender pay gap to be 15.3%, a decrease of 0.9 percentage points over the previous 12-month period.

On average, men working full-time earned $1,638.30 and women earned $1,387.10 a difference of $251.20 per week.

The Agency’s resources will be updated to reflect the new data over the next few days.

The national gender pay gap is the difference between women’s and men’s average weekly full-time base salary earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings. It is a measure of women’s overall position in the paid workforce and does not compare like roles.

It is influenced by a number of factors, including:

  • discrimination and bias in hiring and pay decisions
  • women and men working in different industries and different jobs, with female-dominated industries and jobs attracting lower wages
  • women’s disproportionate share of unpaid caring and domestic work
  • lack of workplace flexibility to accommodate caring and other responsibilities, especially in senior roles
  • women’s greater time out of the workforce impacting career progression and opportunities.