Australia introduces laws to tackle gender pay gap. What new rule states?

Australia has taken a big step towards improving working conditions for women in the country by passing a new law that addresses gender pay gap in the country. As per the new law, firms with over 100 employees will be required to reveal their gender pay gaps from early next year.

Until now, organisations in Australia were required to report inequality in income to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), which publishes the information by industry, but it did not have the power to publicly publish details of company by company. In contrast, the new federal laws require the agency to release data for private businesses from early 2024 and for Commonwealth public sector employees the following year.

The move towards transparency is expected to make businesses accountable and help jobseekers get a clearer indication of a prospective employer’s commitment to ensuring the contributions of all employees are equally valued and rewarded. The country’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins said that the change was an important step in improving the economic security of women, adding that “the new legislation will also play an important role in encouraging business, industry and government to be more active in their efforts to reduce the gender pay gap.”

In 2023, Australia’s gender pay gap was 13.3%, according to official data, and the divide has hardly improved in years. Women in the country earn 87 cents on average for every dollar men earn. The average weekly ordinary full-time earnings across all industries and occupations were at AUD 1,653.60, which was AUD 253.50 less than the average of male counterparts. In the public sector, the gap was 12.5%, while in the private sector, the gap was wider.

The government is trying to usher in a change and has also passed legislation increasing paid parental leave from 18 to 26 weeks, shared between both parents, earlier this month. These measures are aimed at fastening workplace equality in Australia, where the pay gap between men and women is higher than the OECD average of 11.9%.