While the gender pay gap continues to narrow, the gender flex gap has remained stagnant. Early release data from DCA’s Inclusion@Work Index indicates a worrying trend is to blame.
What is the gender flex gap?
Flexible working conditions are an important part of workforce participation for those with caring responsibilities, which disproportionately fall to women. In fact, caring for family is estimated to account for 33% of the gender pay gap.
With this in mind, it’s unsurprising that early release data from our 2023 Inclusion@Work report found only 57% of men reported using flexible work options in the past year compared with 72% of women, representing a gender flex gap of 15%.
What is surprising is that this gap has remained largely stagnant since 2019.
While the 2021 Inclusion@Work Index showed a gender flex gap of just 12%, this narrowing likely reflects the increase in workers having to work from home during the pandemic. In reality, this year’s gap shows very little change from the pre-pandemic figure, with the 2019 Index showing a gap of 16%.
What is the gender flex gap?
Flexible working conditions are an important part of workforce participation for those with caring responsibilities, which disproportionately fall to women. In fact, caring for family is estimated to account for 33% of the gender pay gap.
With this in mind, it’s unsurprising that early release data from our 2023 Inclusion@Work report found only 57% of men reported using flexible work options in the past year compared with 72% of women, representing a gender flex gap of 15%.
What is surprising is that this gap has remained largely stagnant since 2019.
While the 2021 Inclusion@Work Index showed a gender flex gap of just 12%, this narrowing likely reflects the increase in workers having to work from home during the pandemic. In reality, this year’s gap shows very little change from the pre-pandemic figure, with the 2019 Index showing a gap of 16%.
How do we close the gender flex gap?
If we are to make real progress on closing the gender pay gap, Australian workplaces need to address the gender flex gap.
The first step is to explore which flexible work options are possible in your workplace and how these can be introduced to assist employees who have specific needs such as caring responsibilities.
We know that flexibility in the workplace is not only good for employees, it’s good for organisations.
Research shows that flexible workplaces report higher profit and performance, are more successful at attracting and retaining employees, and are more likely to have women in senior roles.
The next and most important step is to destigmatise flex work and encouraging men to “share the care” by taking on a greater share of caring duties.
For more information on the benefits of flexibility and how to make your workplace more flexible, check out the Flexibility section on DCA’s website here.
You can read more about the leading causes of the gender pay gap and how to address them in DCA’s She’s Price(d)less report here.