• Women earn less than men. The full-time total remuneration gender pay gap based on WGEA data is 22.4 %, meaning men working full-time earn nearly $26,527 a year more than women working full-time. When you consider total remuneration, women still get paid about 23 per cent less than men (this and other data at the Workplace Gender Equality Agency).

• Recently legislated tax breaks will favour men over women because they favour higher income earners.

• What women do earn is often eaten up by their Effective Marginal Tax rates (EMTRs), which apply when those caring for young children out of the workforce (mostly women) return to work or increase their work hours, and the family loses family payments and child care subsidies.

• Australia’s equal pay laws are not working well. Hearings have been characterised by problems in interpreting the equal remuneration provisions of the Fair Work Act and conducting gender aware job evaluations. Of the 21 applications made since 1994, only one equal remuneration order has been made by the Fair Work Commission. The Commission’s President, Iain Ross, recently said “it is likely [the gender pay gap] will widen again absent any measures to stop it.”

 

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