The hourly gender pay gap is wider for Australian managers than for professionals, labourers and other classes of workers.

Men in management roles were earning almost 20 per cent more than their female counterparts based on average earnings each hour charted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Sales workers had the narrowest hourly gender pay gap, at seven per cent.

The detailed earnings information from the bureau revealed some progress on the gender pay gap over the past two years, narrowing to 8.9 per cent in May 2023 from 9.7 per cent in May 2021.

Still, men were still earning more per hour than women in all eight major types of occupations.

ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said the task of measuring the gender pay gap was complicated and there was no single measure able to capture the full story.

Yet he said hourly earnings comparisons were more useful than weekly earnings measures as women were more likely to work part-time than men.

He said the prevalence of women in part-time roles partly explained the wider pay gap when considered on a weekly basis.

“The majority of full-time employees are men with higher average earnings – $2,074 a week – than full-time women – $1,815 a week,” Mr Jarvis said.

Australian workers are also most likely to have their pay set via individual agreements – almost 40 per cent – followed by about 34 per cent covered by a collective agreement.

 

Poppy Johnston
(Australian Associated Press)