Category Archives: Gender

Women, gender pay gaps/shares

Gender Equality @ Work – South Australian Data Questions

I have previously highlighted the fact that the gender wage gap in South Australia was (in 2022) significantly lower than the national gap, primarily because of the relatively lower average male pay in SA. I have not tracked the gaps since they, but was made curious again by the recent launch of the Gender Equality @ Work Index Report and a talk I heard from one of its lead authors, Professor Rae Cooper.

The Gender Equality @ Work Index

The Index is much broader than simply the gender wage gap and covers 7 dimensions of workplace gender inequality:

  • Participation – labour force participation and labour utilisation rates
  • Pay – hourly and average weekly pay gap
  • Hours worked – paid and unpaid
  • Stratification – vertical distribution of men and women across workplace levels (including senior executive representation)
  • Segmentation – horizontal concentration of men and women in different industries and jobs
  • Job security & access to leave entitlements
  • Safety – injury rates and sexual harassment at work

I like a good index (hence SACOSS’ almost famous Vegemite Index!), and the Gender Equality @ Work Index is particularly good because of its unique combination of those 7 dimensions (underpinned by 16 different data sets). The result is an index that brings together fairly mainstream but disparate data sources into a snapshot of gender equality at work, but one which also tracks changes over time in key factors driving the broader outcomes.

For instance, as the summary graph below shows, overall gender equality at work has improved over the last 10 years, but progress has been uneven. The biggest improvement has been in stratification (more women entering management and senior positions), while safety has gone backwards and, despite some improvement, segmentation remains a significant problem with the lowest scores in the index.

Gender Equality @ Work Index 2014-2024 Line graph showing trajectory of each of the 7 elements of the index.
Source: Gender Equality @ Work Index Report. Note: the index scores each dimension out of 100, with 100 representing equality and numbers below 100 showing the extend of the gap between men and women.

For me, the inclusion of safety was one of the most important things in the index, while the relative quantification of gender segmentation was particularly useful. I have long heard that Australia had one of the most gender-segmented workforces in the OECD, but the index clearly shows the importance of this in driving overall inequality.

Beyond that, I will let the Index speak for itself (it is an easy read!), although for reasons outlined here, I would have liked to see the gender wage share included in the pay measure. However, indexes are predominantly about changes over time rather than the nuances of their construction, so it is no big issue. And the data did make me go back to the South Australian data, because the Index is only presented at the national level and I wondered if there might be geographical differences.

South Australian Data

I only looked at SA data for a couple of parts of the Gender Equality @ Work Index, participation and pay, and I used slightly different and more limited ABS data sets than those used in the index. In my data:

  • the participation figures are simply the ABS labour market participation rate (without the underutilisation calculation in the Index), and
  • the pay rate is average weekly earnings – total earnings (a different indicator, and without the separate accounting for differences in hourly rates in the Index).

These differences don’t matter much as I was not trying to replicate the Index, but rather to query whether there might be differences in state and national level data.

The two graphs below show the comparison of the national and South Australian data for labour force participation and pay respectively. To match the Index, the gender gap is expressed as a ratio of female to male participation/remuneration, and while there is much greater volatility in the South Australian numbers, there are some clear differences in the national and South Australian trajectories.

In both participation and pay, the national data shows a steady improvement in the female-male ratios over the last ten years. That is, there has been a relatively steady increase in equality in these two dimensions of gendered workplace equality. However, the South Australian data show that momentum towards greater equality here has largely stalled since COVID (2020).

Line graph showing differences in female and male labour force participation rates in SA and nationally from 2014 to 2025.
Line graph comparing gender wage gap (expressed as a ratio of female to male average weekly earnings) in SA and nationally from 2014-2024.

As evident in the first graph above, the participation ratio in South Australia was higher than the national level for much of the pre-COVID period (due partly to declines in the male participation rate in SA from 2014 to early 2017, and again from early 2019 until the COVID recovery). Significantly though, female participation in the SA labour force has not grown much from pre-COVID numbers, and included a large drop in the first half of 2024, hence the ratio in the post-COVID years is mostly lower than the national average.

Similarly, as evident in the second graph, with the exception of the 2024-25 financial year, the pre-COVID improvements in the gender pay ratio in South Australia stalled after COVID. Between November 2020 and May 2024, average weekly earnings for women in South Australia increased by 16.9% and by 16.5% for men (thus basically maintaining the gender pay gap). By comparison, the national figures were a 18.7% earnings increase for women and 12.9% for men, narrowing the gap and increasing the female-male wage ratio.

Conclusion

I don’t have the expertise or resources to replicate the whole Gender Equality @ Work Index for South Australia, but it would seem that there are some potentially significant differences at the state level. This is not to deny the validity or usefulness of the national index and data. However, if the drivers of inequality play out even a little differently in some states, potentially because of different legislation, policy or industry structures, then the Index creators may want to consider state-based indexes as a future expansion of the project.

Of course, that would add complexity in both data analysis and presentation, and one of the strengths of the Index is that it presents key data on complex issues in an accessible way. So there would be pluses and minuses to incorporating geographic differences in the analysis, but even without state data, the Gender Equality @ Work Index is useful as both an educational tool and a policy starting point in addressing workplace inequality.

Snapshot of Inequality – South Australia and National

This snapshot of inequality summarises my series of recent posts on this subject. The series has been a journey. I didn’t completely know where the data would take me and I am now asking different questions than when I started. However, frustrated by the mono-dimensional analyses that often dominate discussion of inequality (including in my own work) I was keen to explore the multi-layered nature of the beast.

Inequalities in income and wealth distribution between households, across states and regions, and between structurally differentiated social groups all matter, so I was keen to analyse the data on all of these – even if in an iterative fashion. I also wanted to look particularly at South Australia, partly for local relevance and partly because state-level data is often not factored in to the analysis of inequality.

Snapshot of Current Inequality

Overall the data examined in this series (almost all it sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics) showed significant levels of inequality across the country, as summarised in the table below.

 AustraliaSouth Australia
Household Income (between states) (2019-20)Australian average (mean gross) income $2329 per week, but state averages range from $1,736 (Tas) to $2,422 (NSW)Average household income $1,989 p.w. = 85.4% of national average, although difference mainly at top end. SA receiving 6.3% of all household income (which is below its population share).
Household Income (within states) (2019-20)  Bottom 40% of households received 13.4% of the total income. High-income households (90th percentile) received 9 times the income of low-income households (10th percentile).Inequality broadly reflects national patterns, but relatively lower incomes at the top end of the income spectrum
Household Income (Regional Areas) (2019-20)Regional Australia accounted for 31% of the population, but received only 27% of income.Regional SA share even smaller with 19.9% of population, but just 17.7% of income.
Household Wealth (2019-20)Distribution more unequal than distribution of income: highest wealth quintile held 62.2% of all household wealth, while the bottom 40% of households held only 6.1% of wealth.Distribution data not available, but wealth holdings in SA have a different structure (relatively less wealth in home ownership, more in financial assets).
Labour Share of the Economy (2021)“Compensation of employees” at historically low levels (47.7% of GDP).Labour share slightly higher (49.3% of GSP)
Gendered Wage Patterns (2022)Gender pay gap of 14.1% in full-time ordinary-time earnings. Bigger gaps when all earnings and all employees included.At 7.4%, f/t ordinary-time earnings gap is around half the national average, but on lower earnings and relatively lower male earnings. Difference between national and SA figures narrows when all earnings and employees included.

Changes Over Time

The above snapshot of inequality is precisely that – just a snapshot at the current point in time. Arguably, a more important story is evident when changes over recent decades are considered.

That story is not straight-forward and has been explored more fully in the earlier posts. However, the short version is that, at the national level:

  • income inequality between households has increased slightly,
  • inequality between cities and the regions, between capital and labour, and inequalities in household wealth have all increased more markedly,
  • gender wage inequality was the only measure where inequality decreased.

These trends are evident in the graphs below which trace changes in the share of the various pools of total income (or wealth, or production), alongside the same data for South Australia (i.e. share of SA total income/product). The time periods vary depending on data availability.

Household Income and Wealth

As can be seen, nationally, the share of total household income of the lowest two (equivalised) income quintiles has been relatively stable, peaking in 1996-97 at 21.4% and falling to 20% in 2019-20. However, while this fall in income share appears small, every 0.1% change represents over $22.6m (in 2019-20) going from the lower to higher income quintiles. Even more significantly, the share of national wealth held by the poorest two wealth quintiles fell more markedly, although the data is more limited, and is not available for South Australia.

Time series snapshot of inequality: share of household income and wealth captured by the bottom two (equivalised) income quintiles, 1994-2020.

Households in Regional Areas

The share of total income received by households outside Australian capital cities fell from 30.7% of the national total in 2000-01 to 27% in 2019-20. (Note: not all years are included in this data). The South Australian data is more volatile, and shows a lower share overall (with proportionately fewer households outside the capital), but the trend is similar.

Time series snapshot of Inequality: Share of national and SA income captured by households in respective regional areas, 2000-2020.

Class

Nationally, labour’s share of the economy fell from 48.8% in June 1994 to 47.7% in June 2021, with each 0.1% change in this data set representing $2bn (in 2021) lost from labour payments. However, the South Australian data here is different, falling more swiftly from a higher share of the economy to a low point in June 2004, then recovering to 49.3% of Gross State Product in 2021 – a larger share of the economy than the labour share nationally.

Time series snapshot of inequality: labour compensation's share of the economy, SA and Australia, 1990-2020.

Gender

As noted above, the gender wage share is the only indicator to see a reduction of inequality with women increasing their share of the national wage pool from 33.1% in November 1994 to 39% in May this year.

Time series snapshot of inequality: female share of total wage pool, SA and national, 10094-2022.

Caveats and Conclusions: Why the Numbers Matter

This snapshot of inequality focuses on shares of total pools of income/wealth, rather than the more traditional but disparate average income figures. My approach enables some consistency of analysis across the different data sets, but I make no claim of a causal relationship or that the inequalities are comparable in nature. Clearly, inequalities can contribute to each other and the data sets overlap, but they are analytically separate and the different trajectories show why it is flawed to simply focus on one dimension (usually household income) when considering questions like whether inequality is increasing or not.

In a future post examining the South Australian data in more detail I will explore more specific interactions between different axes of inequality, but the point of this snapshot of inequality is simply to summarise the data and note the importance of considering multiple forms of inequality alongside each other, rather than the usual mono-dimensional focuses.

In arguing for a broader focus on the multiple forms or layers of inequality, I am not calling for endless sets of data or the infinite division of society until we are left only with individuals (as in the neoliberal dream). Rather, my point is that statistics (and all research data) is a reflection of the questions we ask and the theoretical understandings underpinning the research. Our national economic statistics are a product of the neoclassical and Keynesian theories that gave rise to them (that was Chapter 1 of my PhD). So too, the data we use to describe inequality reflects particular theoretical standpoints.

More than that, the data can limit the way we see society and the policies we might pursue to address both inequality and political economy more generally. For instance, data on the distribution of income between households tends towards a tax-and-transfer redistribution (after the fact) to support households in the lowest income brackets. By contrast, labour share data begets industrial policies, while regional data inevitably leads to development debates.

In saying that, I am mindful that my analysis is not comprehensive. I am sure that people with better statistical programs and skills could provide more nuanced numbers, and not all structures of inequality have been examined. Most notably, there is no consideration of structures of racial inequality, although with relevant census data to be released later this year I may be able to add to the analysis later. Perhaps more importantly, I am also acutely aware that race, gender and class inequality is ultimately not reducible to numbers – or even to the economic.

All that said, the economic aspects of inequality are important, and the numbers do provide useful points of reference. At its most basic, it seems to me to be important to have some sense of the scale of inequality, whether things are getting better or worse, and in what areas.

South Australia’s Small Gender Pay Gap: Is it Good News?

The gender pay gap in South Australia is around half the national figure – but is this really good news?

This is the sixth post in the series on inequality in South Australia, with the early posts dealing with inequality between households and the later posts looking at structural inequalities. This post continues the focus on structural inequality, and looks at gender inequality – or at least one aspect of gendered economic inequality.

Gender Pay Gaps – Official

The “official” gender pay gap figures used by the government’s Workplace Gender Equity Agency show that the gender pay gap is significantly narrower in South Australia than in the country as a whole. At 7.4% the gender pay gap in South Australia is around half the national average, and is the lowest in the country. However, there is devil in the detail of this official figure.

While the gender pay gap is lower in South Australia, this gap is on lower wages overall and does not necessarily reflect women doing relatively better. ABS Labour Force data shows that the $1541 per week full-time ordinary time earnings for women in South Australia was 95.8% of the equivalent figure at the national level. For men in SA, full-time ordinary time earnings were 89% of the national figure. In theory, this difference could mean that SA has proportionately more women in higher paying jobs, but more likely it reflects labour market segmentation where proportionately more women are in jobs with wages set nationally (e.g. minimum wages or modern awards), while men are overly represented in non-award industries where wages may differ more across the country.

This suggests that much of the difference in the national and SA gender pay gaps is not about women’s pay, but rather because men’s wages in SA are disproportionately lower than the national average. Put another way, rather than the labour market in SA bringing women’s wages up closer to men’s, it is an “equalling down” based on relatively lower men’s wages.

This creates particular challenges for the left and the union movement: how to increase wages in South Australia to closer to national averages without also increasing the gender wage gap? Obviously, a focus on gender segmentation and increasing wages in highly feminized industries like childcare is a start, but it should also be a factor in changes to enterprise bargaining currently under consideration.

Bigger Gender Pay Gaps Beyond the Headline Figure

The “official gender pay gap” based on full time ordinary time figures is only one measure of gendered pay inequality. The table below shows a range of key gender pay gap and wage share data for Australia and South Australia and is necessary because the full-time ordinary time data is limited. It ignores (and arguably institutionalises) gender differences in access to overtime and bonuses.

The first line in the table is the official full-time ordinary time data, but as can be seen in the second line of the table, when overtime, bonuses and other extras are taken into account in total full-time weekly earnings the gender pay gap is much larger. It is still less of a gap in South Australia, but the difference in the national and SA figures is narrower.

However, even these full-time figures ignore the over-representation of women in part-time and casual work. As evident in the third line in the table, the gender pay gap jumps markedly when the average weekly earnings of all employees are included. The gap between South Australian and national figures is much lower here, presumably because of a higher proportion of women in part-time jobs in South Australia. This is confirmed by the gender wage share data in the bottom line of the table, where the difference between the national and SA figures is lowest.

Gender Pay Gaps, May 2022

 AustraliaSA
F/T Ordinary Time Earnings14.1%7.4%
F/T Total Earnings16.5%9.6%
Average Earnings29.7%27.7%
Women’s Participation Rate62.2%58.4%
Gender Wage Share39.0%40.0%
Source: Calculations from ABS Average Weekly Earnings and Labour Force

Gender Wage Share

I have set out elsewhere a rationale for considering, alongside the traditional average pay gap data, the gender wage share – that is, the female share of the total wage pool. The importance of that wage share data can be seen here.

Both nationally and in South Australia, the female half of the population takes home around 40% of the total wage pool. In actual dollars, the May 2022 figures show that men as a whole in South Australia take home $221m more than women each week, for an annual return to gender of $11.5bn. To put that in the context of the local economy, the total sales revenue of South Australia’s biggest company, SANTOS was around $6.9bn in 2021, around 60% of the gender wage share differential.

As I argued in an earlier post about the corresponding national figure of a $200bn annual wage differential, the aggregate gender wage share difference is a significant economic flow that not just reflects but contributes to the reproduction of that inequality.

Changes Over Time

The 2022 data above shows, in short, that while the official gender pay gap is much lower in South Australia, the benefit of this is diluted by lesser participation in paid work by women (both relatively lower participation in the workforce, and relatively fewer hours by those engaged in paid work). As we will see below, these patterns are not new.

The following graph shows the full-time (all earnings) gender wage gap in Australia and South Australia over the last 25 years. While the data on South Australia is more volatile, the gender pay gap in South Australia has generally been below the national figure. In both data sets, the gender pay gap shrinks in the late 1990s, but grows again from 2000 nationally and from 2004 in South Australia through to 2014. The gap then shrinks over the next few years before flattening out in the last few years.

Time series of gender pay gap in full-time total earnings in South Australia and Australia.

However, the gender wage share data tells a slightly different story. There is little difference in the time-series data on South Australian and Australian women’s share of their respective total wage pools. In both data sets there is a small but sustained increase in women’s share (apart from a small dip after the Global Financial Crisis in 2008) (see the black SA line in the graph below). In South Australia women’s share of the total wage pool increased from 35.1% in November 1994 to 40% in May this year. The national figures showed an increase from 33.1% to 39% over the same period.

Crucially though, this story is set against the backdrop noted in a number of my previous posts of a general decline in South Australia’s economy relative to the national economy. This was evident in SA’s share of household income and the labour share of the economy. The graph below shows that this decline also impacts on the gender wage share. While the top line shows that women have been increasing their share of the South Australian wages pool, with that pool in relative decline, South Australian women’s share of the national wages pool has actually shrunk from 2.6% in 1994 to 2.41% this year.

Time series (1994-2022) of female share of total wages pool in South Australia, and South Australian female wages as proportion of Australian wage pool.

While this decline in South Australian women’s share of the national wage pool is alarming, it is made even more problematic because, as noted in the previous post, the wage pool itself is declining as a proportion of the economy.

Summing Up

The official gender pay gap data shows South Australia doing relatively well with the smallest gap in the country, but a closer look at the data tells a less rosy story. The smaller gender wage gap is based on lower women’s participation rates and relatively lower male wages in South Australia. It is not a story of greater female agency in the labour market. The national/SA differences almost disappear when the share of the total wage pool is considered.

And regardless of the comparative story, the gender wage inequalities in South Australia remain significant – with a 27.7% gap in average earnings leading to an aggregate $11.5bn annual wage gap. Further, while women’s share of the South Australian wage pool has increased over the last 25 years, these gains are undermined by the shrinking of that wage pool relative to the national wage pool – a national pool which, with historically low labour shares of GDP, is itself shrinking relative to the economy as a whole.

Beneath the headline gender pay gap data, for South Australian women workers there is a particularly problematic intersection of gender, geographic and class inequalities.