RMIT experts available for comment on gender equality and the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Case

Dr Leonora Risse (0401 360 733 or leonora.risse@rmit.edu.au)

Topics: gender equality, women in the workforce, labour economics

“In practice, the ‘equal pay for equal work’ principle had the effect of creating the notion that there are distinctively ‘male’ and ‘female’ jobs. 

“The onus is on women in low-paying jobs to point towards a comparative ‘male’ occupation that involves the same skill and work responsibility, and yet is higher paid. This has been very difficult to achieve.

“While more women are gradually shifting into traditionally male domains, we still see a strong gender segregation today in the industries and occupations that men and women work in, with predominately female jobs over-represented at the lower end of the earnings spectrum.

“We also know from economic analysis that these types of industry and occupational segregations are one of the strongest explanatory factors for the overall gender gap in earnings, contributing to almost a third of the overall gap.

“It's difficult to untangle the gender patterns of today's workforce from the history of Australia's industrial relations system.

“But, at the same time, we're also gathering more evidence on ways to close gender pay gap.

“Workplace Gender Equality Agency data has found that companies that undertake an internal pay analysis are more likely narrow it.

“Denmark provides a really informative case study after it became compulsory in 2006 for Danish companies to publicly disclose their gender pay gap.

“The Danish gender pay gap has indeed narrowed, by putting the brakes on men's wage growth, rather than an acceleration of women's wages.

“While not necessarily advocating for public disclosure of pay gaps, it's important to understand the different ways that companies can be incentivised to address the issue.”

Dr Leonora Risse is a Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow based in the School of Economics, Finance & Marketing at RMIT. An economist, she has previously worked for the Productivity Commission and is the Chair of the Victorian branch of the Women in Economics Network. She is becoming an in-demand media commentator on gender equality and is known for her ability to distil complex policy and issues for a mainstream Australian audience.

Professor Sara Charlesworth (+61 412 889 122, sara.charlesworth@rmit.edu.au)

Topics: gender (in)equality in employment, aged care, insecure work, equal pay, sexual harassment

“Only a small proportion of the wage gap between women and men today can be explained by differences in education and work experience.

“The main contributing factors include the undervaluation of feminised work and skills, differences in the types of jobs held by men and women and the method of setting pay for those jobs.

“This is particularly the case in rapidly-growing, female-dominated sectors like aged care and disability support, where it assumed because the work looks like the work women do for free that it is work of lower value than, say, the work undertaken in construction or manufacturing.

“Other key factors include workplace policies and practices which restrict the employment prospects for workers with family responsibilities, and do not monitor starting salaries to ensure that women and men in jobs of similar skill and responsibility are paid the same.

“Apart from improved equal pay laws, women need access to decent wage classifications in

awards that recognise the skills required and provide for advancement. They also need secure working time conditions.  Currently a large proportion of women in the care and support sectors are underemployed, paid at the bottom of limited classification structures and have insecure and unpredictable working hours.” 

*Professor Charlesworth is in Canada until June 25. Please text +61 412 889 122 and include deadline.

Professor Sara Charlesworth researches gender, work and regulation in the RMIT School of Management. She is also Director of the Centre for People, Organisation and Work within the University’s College of Business as well as co-convenor of the Work+Family Policy Roundtable.

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