The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) released its Employer Gender Pay Gaps Report for 2023-24 in March. This publication is in addition to the annual Gender Equality Scorecard released in November 2024, and provides further analysis on aggregated results for broader context and proposes commonalities that increase the likelihood of larger gender pay gaps both in favour of men and in favour of women.

Following legislative changes in 2023, remuneration at the CEO, Head of Business (HOB) and Casual Manager level was reported for the first time. This inclusion created a new baseline average total remuneration pay gap of 21.8% ($28,425). When the CEO/HOB data is removed, Australia’s  average total remuneration pay gap marginally declined by 0.6 percentage points to 21.1% from 2022-23.

Figure 1: Historical total remuneration gender pay gap

While the wage gap is largest at the CEO/HOB level at 27.1%, there has been improvement at levels below the highest tier. This is largely attributed to wage increases to lower paid workers in women-dominated industries such as Aged Care Residential Services, Retail Trade and Accommodation and Food Services.

The proportion of women in leadership roles has remained the same as the prior year, with women representing 22% of CEO roles and 42% of overall manager roles.

Female representation on boards and governing bodies remains largely unchanged at 32%. One in 4 boards consist of no women, predominately attributed to men-dominated industries such as construction. In comparison, only 1% of boards do not have male representation. Ninety percent of employers have a policy or strategy to support gender equality in the workplace, 45% set targets. Of these, 68% of companies are setting targets to increase the number of women in leadership positions, compared with 57% last year. Only a third of employers are currently setting gender equality KPIs for managers.

Australia and UK gear up on DEI with more regulation

Legislation passed at the end of March will require organisations of over 500 employees to now set and report on gender equality targets from 2025-26. While organisations must choose from a defined list of items, the legislation does not prescribe the target.

The important aspect to note is that target setting is prescribed. This goes further than most countries.

Progress against these self-nominated targets is assessed at the end of a 3-year period based on WGEA reporting. Non-compliant organisations may be named by WGEA. Opposite to President Trump’s executive orders banning a similar requirement for the US federal civil service agencies, non-compliant companies will no longer be considered by government departments and agencies for new and existing procurement contracts over $80,000.

As flagged in our March newsletter (HERE), while changes at a global level in response to Trump 2.0 may see a softening or pullback in diversity metrics within STI KPIs of ASX-listed companies over the next 3 years, now that legislation has passed, Australia’s largest employers will continue to feel the heat on gender diversity.

As Australia legislated the reporting of gender equality targets, the UK announced a consultation period to consider extending mandatory pay gap reporting to ethnicity and disability (see HERE) for organisations of over 250 people to take effect some time in 2026.  It remains to be seen whether this consultation process results in changed legislation, or whether Trump 2.0 triumphs.

See HERE for the full Employer Pay Gaps report and HERE for the full Gender Equality Scorecard.

You can benchmark your company’s report against the national standards HERE.

Workplace Gender Equality Act (2012) Amendment explanatory memorandum can be found HERE.

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