Australia's Gender Pay Gap: Why Women Still Earn Significantly Less Than Men

A new government report has revealed that while Australia's gender pay gap has slightly narrowed, women are still being paid significantly less than men.

According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), nearly three-quarters of Australian employers still pay men more than women, with the biggest pay differences seen in industries like finance, mining, and construction.

For the 12 months leading up to March 2024, women earned on average AU$28,425 less than their male counterparts. This means that for every dollar a man earns, a woman earns only 78 cents.

"Where an employer's gender pay gap is beyond the target range of +/-5%, it indicates one gender is more likely to be over-represented in higher paying roles compared to the other," Reuters quoted Mary Wooldridge, WGEA CEO, as saying.

The findings come from a survey of nearly 8,000 employers across the country. These numbers include salaries, bonuses, overtime, and superannuation payments, The Guardian reported.

This was the second year that such data has been published, thanks to new legislation in 2023 that allowed WGEA to release salary information at the company level.

The report showed that in 2024, 72.2% of employers had a gender pay gap that favored men. Only 6.5% of employers had a gender pay gap that favored women, and 21.3% had no significant pay gap.

For the first time in 2025, WGEA also made it possible for people to see average salaries at individual companies, along with the pay distribution across different levels of the workforce.

The report also revealed an unfortunate trend -- the higher the average pay at a company, the more likely it was to have a larger gender pay gap in favor of men.

"The rate of change has been slow. But we are tackling some deep-seated cultural views and perspectives, including things like gender stereotypes in relation to roles and occupations," Wooldridge pointed out.

While the overall pay gap remained the same, the WGEA found that 56% of employers managed to reduce their gender pay gap in the 2023-2024 period, compared to the previous year.

Commenting on the pay gap, Macquarie CEO Shemara Wikramanayake said that the company does not want to pressure female employees into senior positions before they are fully prepared.

"It's going to take as long as it's going to take," she told the Australian Financial Review Business Summit on Tuesday. "We're not going to force females into senior roles. I think that would be counterproductive."

Why the pay gap exists

The gender pay gap does not reflect pay differences for the same job, which has been illegal in Australia since 1969. Instead, it shows the difference in average pay between men and women, which can be caused by several factors:

• Men often hold more senior or technical roles.
• Cultural expectations may limit women's career opportunities, especially if they are expected to take on more caregiving responsibilities.
• Women are more likely to work part-time, and part-time workers are less likely to hold senior positions.
• Men are sometimes denied the chance to work part-time or take parental leave, limiting their career flexibility.
• Industries that are typically dominated by women are often valued and paid less than those led by men.