She’s Price(d)less: New report names drivers of Australia’s gender pay gap

• The gender pay gap is estimated to be costing $1.26 billion a week in lost earnings.
• More than 25 years to close the gender pay gap, if current trends continue.
• The types of jobs women and men do, plus unequal distribution of hours spent on care, family and workforce participation between women and men found to be major contributing factors.

Australia’s gender pay gap is costing the economy an estimated $1.26 billion a week in equivalent earnings, based on new analysis of HILDA data.

The 5^th edition of KPMG Australia’s She’s Price(d)less report, prepared with Diversity Council Australia (DCA) and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), offers fresh insights for employers, employees and policy makers on what is driving the persistent and pervasive gender pay gap.

It identifies key drivers as unequal distribution of hours spent on care, family and workforce participation, as well as the types of jobs women and men engage in (workforce gender segregation).

The report found that women in Australia earned an average of $42.26 an hour, while men earned $45.57. That represented an hourly pay gap of 7.3%, up from 6.5% in 2020¹. It predicts that committed action is needed for Australia’s gender pay gap to close before 2054.

The analysis also found that as women’s level of responsibility in the workforce increased, they experienced a higher gender pay gap.  Women experienced an 18% pay gap at higher income levels compared to little or no gender pay gap at the lower income levels.

Lower rates of pay in the occupations and industries where women were more likely to be employed accounted for 37% of the gender pay gap, according to the analysis. Gendered assumptions around workforce participation, for things like who should take parental leave and provide care for family members, was also a significant factor, accounting for 26% of the gap. The remaining 55% of the gap was attributed to additional gender influences which include discrimination and other factors that are hard to control for statistically.

The HILDA data also shows that in Australia, women were more likely to be employed on a casual basis or to be working reduced weekly hours, compared to men. Forty-eight per cent of all employed persons nationally were women, up slightly from 47.7% in August 2023. Women represented 66.5% of our part-time workforce, but just 39.8% of the full-time workforce.

Comment attributable to Dorothy Hisgrove, Head of People and Inclusion at KPMG:

“KPMG’s report is unique because it looks beyond the numbers to identify underlying factors driving inequality between women and men at work. This information is crucial to accelerate change by enabling more meaningful decision-making by employers and policy makers.

“The gender pay gap in this country remains persistent and pervasive, with the types of jobs women were employed in and the higher proportion of unpaid hours spent on household and caring responsibilities, the main contributing factors.

“While this analysis does not capture the impact of recent and welcome government reforms to put gender pay gaps for individual employers on the public record, we hope to see insights on this in the future.”

Comment attributable to DCA Chief Executive Catherine Hunter:

“These findings illustrate stark disparities in economic outcomes, and pave the way toward understanding how closing the gender pay gap for all women will require us to recognise and respond to the intersecting drivers of inequality.

“For culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) women in particular, the barriers they face in the workplace are not shaped by gender alone. They are compounded and layered in ways that traditional frameworks have often failed to capture.

“This necessary work is not just up to policymakers or advocacy groups – it’s a responsibility that belongs to every employer, across every sector.”

Comment attributable to WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge:

“These findings send a message about the need to accelerate progress to close the gender pay gap.

“Employers have an opportunity to drive productivity and meet employees’ expectations of a fair, safe and equal workplace by examining their own workforce data, finding areas of inequality, and taking evidence-informed action to address them.

“We know what works to improve fairness at work. Taking action to make that a reality can unlock significant economic growth for our nation, foster innovation and ensure we value all people at work.”

Read the full report.

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