Closing the gender pay gap

Closing the gender pay gap is a significant issue that affects all of us, and it's time to take action to address it. Unfortunately, progress has been painfully slow – an average of just 0.24 percentage points over the past 17 years, with the World Economic Forum projecting that it will take until 2154 to close the gap – a sobering 131 years from now!

In the US, the gender pay gap has remained stagnant for nearly two decades, with women earning only 84 cents for every $1 that men earn. Despite the landmark Equal Pay Act introduced over 40 years ago in 1963 which prohibits wage discrimination on the basis of sex, women, on average, have been paid less than men. The gap is even wider on an intersectional dimension for women of color. Black women earning only 67 cents and Hispanic women earning only 57 cents for every dollar paid to white non-Hispanic men. [i]

In Europe, the picture is similar. The average gender wage gap in the European Union countries stands at 12.7% and the mark has barely moved over the last decade.

But there is hope. Wage transparency reporting has been a powerful tool in driving action and reducing the gender pay gap. For example, in the UK, gender pay gap disclosures led to a 3.1% improvement from 2019 to 2023 with the UK gender pay gap declining from 17.4% (2019) to 14.3% (2023). [ii] And in Australia, the leading 25% of businesses improved gender pay equity by 5.3 percentage points in 3 years (2019 to 2022).[iii]  However, there is still work to be done. Australia's remuneration gender pay gap is 21.7%, according to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). That means that for every $1 on average a man makes, women earn 78c.

We can all learn from the experiences of companies like Lion Australia and Salesforce. Lion Australia implemented a comprehensive pay gap analysis and took immediate action to rectify discrepancies in 'like for like' roles, banned questions about salary history during job interviews, and removed “primary” and “secondary carer” labels from parental leave provisions.[iv]

Similarly, Salesforce, a cloud computing and customer relationship management company, conducted an annual equal pay assessment of nearly 70,000 global employees since 2015. Their latest analysis found 8.5% of their global employees required adjustments. Of those, 92% were based on gender globally, and 8% were based on race or ethnicity in the U.S. As a result, Salesforce spent $5.6 million to address any unexplained differences in pay, a total of more than $22 million spent since 2015.[v]

It's time to take a proactive approach to wage equality, and we can all make a difference. By advocating for equal pay, supporting companies that prioritize wage equality, and holding our leaders accountable, we can work together to close the gender pay gap and create a more equitable society.

Photo: Fauxels | Pexels

References

[i] Women’s Bureau. US Department of Labor. Understanding the Gender Wage Gap. March 2023.

[ii] Office of National Statistics. Gender pay gap in the UK: 2023.

[iii] WGEA. New report highlights wide disparity in Australian business’s gender pay equality performance. 5 October 2023.

[iv] Lion. LinkedIn post: https://lnkd.in/ghHNxR_6

[v] Salesforce. 2022 Equal Pay Update: The Salesforce Approach to Pay Fairness.