This year’s WGEA data shows that year-on-year the gender pay gap has trended downward each year However, for the fifth year in a row, the gender pay gap persists across all industry and occupations.
The total remuneration gender pay gap now sits at 21.3%. That is a drop of 3.4 percentage points in the last five years.
Gender pay gaps across the WGEA dataset are an indicator of women’s overall position in the workforce and do not compare like roles.
Women’s overall position is moving at a slow pace towards equality as gender pay gaps favour men across all industries and occupations in the workforce.
Financial and Insurance Services remains the industry with the highest total remuneration gender pay gap at 30.3% (accounts to an annual difference of $48,884). However, it has decreased from 36.1% in 2013-14.
Construction has now replaced Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services as the industry with the second-highest gender pay gap at 29.4% ($39,950). Construction saw a 4.0 percentage point increase in their pay gap this year. There was a 5.1pp decline in the gender pay gap in Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services to 26.3% - the largest single drop of any industry sector.
The female-dominated industry of Health Care and Social Assistance saw a second annual increase in its gender pay gap (up 1.4pp from 14.7% in 2015-16 to 16.1% in 2017-18).
The gender pay gap has declined in all manager categories over the past 12 months with the largest decrease occurring in the Senior Manager category (down 2.3 pp). There has also been a decrease in every occupational category with the exception of Community and Personal services which saw a slight increase of 0.4pp.
Find out how your own industry and occupational category is performing on gender pay gaps by visiting our Data Explorer.
WGEA 5 Year Data Comparison (PDF, 191.25 KB)
This document covers the biggest outcomes over five years of workplace gender equality data.