Q+A: What will it take to close the gender pay gap?

It's Equal Pay Day -  what will it take to close the gender pay gap?

Natalie MacDonald is joined by Elizabeth Broderick AO, former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner and the founder of the Champions of Change Coalition.Today is Equal Pay Day, which marks the end of the 50 additional days into the new financial year that women in Australia need to work to earn the same pay, on average, as men.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q and A, where we
ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.
I'm Natalie McDonald and today on Equal Payday, what will
it take to close the gender pay gap? Elizabeth Broderick
is a former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner and the founder
of Champions Have Changed Coalition. She is now the founder

(00:27):
and principal of Elizabeth Broderick and Co, working with companies
and organizations to transform workplace culture. Elizabeth, Welcome to Fear
and Greed Q and A.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Thanks very much Natalie, lovely to be here with you
today on Equal Payday.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
There's always an air of confusion around days like Equal
Payday and the usual rhetoric around same pay for the
same job emerges. But it's not quite that simple, is it.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
No, If onally it was, the reality is it's been
unlawful for many years to pay men and women differently
for the same job. So that's really not what we're
talking about. What we're talking about is when we look
at men in a particular workplace and women in a
particular workplace, on average, men earn more than women, and

(01:18):
there's a whole lot of reasons for that. One is
that women are often not promoted at the same rate
as men because as we know, women are off taking
parental leave, they're coming back in flexible work arrangements. So
that's one reason the unequal distribution of care. Or we
have industries which are very maldominated, so in relation to manufacturing,

(01:42):
in relation to engineering or financial services, and those industries
are valued more than feminized industries. So there's some of
the reasons that we get this pay gap between what
on average men are paid and women are paid.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
As you say, it's the societal cultural issues. It's part
of a bigger picture, not simply the like for la
like cash cash that comes home each day. What is
the progress then that has been made so far.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Look, there has been some good progress actually, and we
just saw this week figures came out which said the
gender pay gap is today the lowest it's ever been
in the history of a nation. It's eleven point five percent.
So that means that women are being paid on average
eleven point five percent less than men. And that is

(02:36):
also coupled with some other good news today, and that
is that men and women's workforce participation rates. So that's
the amount the rate at which women participate in paid
work that is the smallest it's ever been. It's a
seven point two percent difference. So those two things are
good news, but the fact is they do mask being

(03:01):
averages what's happening in particular sectors. So, for example, there's
still a very high gender pay gap in financial services
and insurance. So there are many industries where the pay
gap would be well over twenty percent. But because we've
got other sectors like government, the pay gap is very low.

(03:21):
That brings us to an average of eleven point five percent.
But we're seeing so many organizations recognize that this is
not just a gender issue. This is actually a key
economic and business issue, and they're really prioritizing closing the
gender pay gap in their organization.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Another critique that's often held around in these conversations is
that the solutions and benefits are women centric and therefore
struggle to gain traction. How do you encourage leaders to
talk about the benefits for all genders.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
You're exactly right. The fact is when you close the
pay gap, you open up productivity, and actually you open
up benefit not just for women and their families, but
also for communities and the economy. Just let me give
you an example of that. If you know a woman

(04:16):
and a man who are in the same family are
being paid for their work wherever they work equally with
the other gender, it means we're more likely to have
greater economic security in the family. Now, when a pandemic
like COVID comes along and one of them loses their job,
there's much more economic resilience built into that family. So

(04:39):
we know that the gender closing, the gender pay gap
actually builds resilience into families. Not only that, it opens
up opportunities in our economy because when women are paid
appropriately and on par with men, what we see is
women also have more money in their hands, they spend more,

(05:01):
not necessarily on themselves, but on their families. That actually
lifts our economy as well. So there's so many examples
of where the gender pay gap closing it actually benefits everyone.
It's not particularly a women's issue.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
You've made a couple of references, Elizabeth to productivity. Now
that of course, really is the name of the game
this week with the economic roundtable. Are there certain policy
settings that you would perhaps like to see the trigger
pulled on in terms of closing the gap? To support
an up left in Australia's productivity.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Absolutely. I think if we can close the gender pay gap,
if we do a number of things. One is the
more equal sharing of paid and unpaid work between men
and women, so with Australia's traveling too in terms of
its paid parental lead scheme, but also some of the
policy suggestions in relation to universal childcare and em betting

(06:00):
flexible work for both men and women. All those policies
are ones which will uplift productivity in the nation and
indeed at the same time close the gender pay gap.
So there's some really strong policies like that. I mean,
in terms of individual organizations doing their part to close

(06:20):
the gender pay gap, I think we need to prioritize
this issue as a leadership issue. We need to invest
in pathways for women into male dominated industries also like trades,
and equally to have men coming into more feminized industries
like nursing and teaching. That's what starts to break down

(06:44):
the occupational segregation. So that will have a really significant impact.
And then the final thing I'd say, Natalie, is that
no one organization itself can shift the gender pay gap. Necessarily,
what we need to do is collaborate across industry. We
need to work with governments to have the right policy settings.

(07:04):
But it's that collaborative action that will lead to faster,
more sustainable progress on closing the gender pay gap.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
And just lastly, then, Elizabeth, obviously today is equal Payday,
but this change and this trans transformation goes far beyond
just one day. But what is one action that an
individual leader or organization can take today or at least
in the shorter term to accelerate progress.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
I mean, I think the first action to do is
to actually look at your organization, and particularly if you're
someone who's leading the organization, then to undertake what we
call is a gender pay audit, so that is to
look at, okay, on average, men and women paid equally

(07:52):
for work of equal or comparable value. So I think
just doing the analysis, that's actually the starting point, and
you can start as easily as saying, look, we've got
new graduates coming into our organization. Are we paying men
and women equally from the day they start? Most people,

(08:12):
most organizations hopefully would say yes to that, Natalie. But
then if you say yes to that, go on and say, okay, well,
what is the first what we would call a broken rung.
That's the first point at which women's promotion starts to
slow down and men's promotions starts to speed up, because
that's maybe the first point of intervention. So with those

(08:34):
two small steps, you're on the way to better understanding
the gender pay gap and what action you might take
to try and make sure that men and women are
paid equally.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Elizabeth, thank you so much for talking to Fear and
Greed today.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Thank you very much, Natalie.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
That was Elizabeth Broderick, former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner and
founder of Champions of Change coalition. If you've got something
you'd like to know, then say through your question on LinkedIn, Instagram,
Facebook or at farangreed dot com dot au. I'm Natalie
McDonald and this is fear Ingried Q and a