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View All NewsAustralia – Report highlights pay gap for women
More Australian women are working than ever before, but they continue to lag behind men in terms of pay, according to an ANZ white paper.
The ANZ Women's Report, ‘Barriers to Achieving Gender Equity’, states that the income disparity begins early in careers and the gender pay differences are deeply embedded in the system.
The paper found women's workforce participation had risen by more than 25% over the past three decades, but full-time female workers were paid 18.8$ — or AUD 295 per week (USD 215) — less than men. It is estimated that 90% of Australian women will retire with inadequate savings.
The head of ANZ's global wealth division, Joyce Phillips, said the difference was significant.
"This is AUD 15,000 (USD 11,000) a year, and over the entire career of these women, the gap extends to around $700,000 (USD 510,000) and that's the average price of an Australian home, so it's a significant gap," Ms Phillips said.
The paper said a lack of flexibility when taking time out to care for family members was one reason for the gap. According to Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick: "Many women will live in poverty in retirement ... because they've taken time to care ... so what we've started doing is to reframe this issue, and to start to ask 'is poverty to be a reward for a lifetime spent caring’?'"
According to the report, women accounted for just 20.4% of all ASX 200 board members and were under-represented in Federal Parliament, accounting for less than a third of parliamentarians across all states, territories and the nation overall.
ANZ Global Wealth chief executive Joyce Phillips called for government and the business sector to remove the inequalities that exist for women.
"It is critical that our business, community and government leaders start to think differently, innovate and agitate for change so that we shift the status quo and address the inequities that continue to hold many women back," she said.
The report is avialable to download here