{"id":252762,"date":"2025-10-31T08:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252762\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T08:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:08:09","slug":"report-shows-gender-pay-gap-increases-for-women-as-they-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252762\/","title":{"rendered":"Report shows gender pay gap increases for women as they age"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the start of their careers, men and women earn almost the same, but a new report reveals the gender pay gap widens for women with every birthday.<\/p>\n

By the time women reach their 30s, their earnings flatten and men’s climb, with female bosses earning almost a full median salary less than male managers on average in Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) report<\/a> has found the gender pay gap sits at 1 per cent in favour of men for workers in their 20s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the gap that started off as a hairline crack for women in their 20s widens in their 50s, with female bosses earning $85,600 less than male managers, on average.<\/p>\n

For non-manager roles, men in their 50s earn 31 per cent more than women their age — a $52,000 difference on average.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report used information reported to WGEA in 2024 by more than 7,000 employers, and represents the experiences of more than 5.1 million employees in 19 industries across Australia.<\/p>\n

Adding the earnings difference for every age from 15 to 67, women earn on average about $1.5 million less than men.<\/p>\n

Female bosses earn less than men at every age<\/p>\n

The average wage for a manager in Australia is about $215,000, while a non-manager’s income is less than half of that at $103,000.<\/p>\n

And from the age of 34, a manager is more likely to be a man, the study found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Workplace lawyers say it’s time to ask questions about why men are paid more<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s official, men are paid more than women at many of the country’s major companies, including banks, retailers, legal firms and mines, but what is being done to address it?<\/p>\n

Meraiah Foley, a senior lecturer in work and organisational studies at the University of Sydney, said women bore a disproportionate burden for unpaid care and were more likely to accommodate that with part-time employment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Women are often locked out of managerial roles where you know the incomes are the highest because of those caregiving roles,” she said.<\/p>\n

“So by their late 50s, women on average are earning significantly less than men.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“These aren’t the results of individual choices, they actually reflect how employment and work are still organised around outdated norms of full-time, uninterrupted work.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Men gain more exposure to management and leadership teams, the report found. (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)<\/p>\n

The study showed over time, men gained more exposure to management and leadership teams.<\/p>\n

Known as the ‘sticky floor effect’, it keeps women from moving to manager roles that lead to higher incomes.<\/p>\n

This also plays into how much superannuation women retire with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A report by the Super Members Council found that women retired with a third less in superannuation than men.<\/p>\n

Work demands do not match up<\/p>\n

Dr Foley said policies that normalised shared care between heterosexual couples could disrupt longstanding norms around who worked and who provided care.<\/p>\n

She said the “use it or lose it” model in Nordic countries, which refers to non-transferable parental leave reserved for each parent \u2014\u00a0 often called “daddy quotas” \u2014\u00a0was one example of how to shrink the gender pay gap.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mary Wooldridge says employer interventions at critical times could reduce the gender pay gap. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

WGEA chief executive Mary Wooldridge said women would continue to experience a dramatic lifetime financial impact if further action was not taken to address fairness at work.<\/p>\n

“Our report shows how key employer interventions at critical times could reduce the gender pay gap and improve women’s ability to earn and save for retirement,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It also provides insight into how those same actions can help address men’s concerns including lack of flexibility, long-hours work culture, and fair and equal access to parental leave.<\/p>\n

“We’re asking employers to change the story and shape the future,” Ms Wooldridge said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the start of their careers, men and women earn almost the same, but a new report reveals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,149671,42889,114202,149672,114204,44,149670,12632,6624,149669],"class_list":["post-252762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dr-meraiah-foley","tag-gender-equality","tag-gender-pay-gap","tag-gender-pay-gap-australia","tag-mary-wooldridge","tag-news","tag-wgea","tag-women","tag-work","tag-workplace-gender-equality-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}