The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) released the new national gender pay gap figure of 14.2 percent on August 19, an increase of 0.8 percentage points over the last six months. As a result, WGEA announced that Equal Pay Day 2021 will be on the 31st of August, marking the 61 extra days women, on average, must work to earn the same as men earnt that financial year. It is a symbolic day that helps to raise awareness of the barriers women face in accessing the same financial rewards for their work as men. 

According to Average Weekly Earnings data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), women earn an average of $261.50 less per week compared to their male counterparts. The data showed that lower wages for females were consistent across every industry in Australia: wine, agriculture and manufacturing are no exception. 

Here, we look at the current gender pay gap within each of these sectors, as well as the leadership and employment opportunities afforded to the female workforce within these male-dominated workplaces. 

The agriculture industry 

Australia’s agriculture industry has a gender pay gap significantly larger than the nation’s average at 17.6 percent. This has however, dropped from 2016 when women earned 21.8 percent less than their male counterparts. 

According to the Gender Equity Insights 2021 report, this drop is due in-part to the increase of the number of women in leadership roles that has occurred over the years. In fact, the report revealed that agriculture has made the most ground in the seven years to 2020, increasing the share of women on Boards by 10 percentage points. 

Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnell said the gender pay gap was a problem in heavily male-dominated industries such as agriculture, yet getting more women into senior leadership does make a difference. 

"It's really important for male-dominated organisations to realise they will perform better if they have a more diverse group of people running their organisations,” she said. "When you have more women in leadership, it doesn't just bring down the gender pay gap, it also leads to better economic performance." 

Her sentiment is backed up in a WGEA report titled Gender Equity Insights 2020: Delivering on Business Outcomes, which revealed a strong relationship between an increase in the number of women in key decision-making positions and subsequent improvements in company performance, profitability and productivity. 

Agriculture employers can help women enter senior and leadership roles by providing training and mentoring opportunities, as well as understanding the systemic barriers that may impact a female employee’s ability to actively request promotion into a senior role, as men are characteristically more assertive when it comes to requesting promotions or pay rises. 

To address this, training and educating Hiring Managers about unconscious bias will be key when it comes to creating a fairer hiring and promotional process. It can also be a good idea to enlist the assistance of external recruitment professionals, whose consultants implement practices that ensure biases don’t impact on the hiring decision. 

The wine industry 

By comparison, Australia’s wine industry has a much lower gender pay gap of just 3.5 percent for full-time employees. A growing number of females are also graduating from Viticulture and Oenology degrees, with Charles Sturt University now seeing close to an equal male-female split. Unfortunately, when it comes to finding employment, the gap widens, with women making up just 39.2 percent of the industry compared to 60.8 percent of men. 

It seems, however, that some wine producers and industry bodies are taking action to change this. Last year, Australia’s largest wine company, Treasury Wine Estates made strides towards achieving its goal of 50% female representation in leadership roles by 2025, by enhancing its parental support offering. 

Family-friendly policies are a significant factor contributing to Australia’s gender pay gap, as women continue to perform most of a household’s domestic work and child rearing duties. A 2019 WGEA study, found that flexible workplace policies and employer-funded paid parental leave schemes are integral to retaining female staff members during and after pregnancy. Employer-provided onsite childcare also increases the retention of female managers by almost 20 percent. 

The manufacturing industry 

According to Australia's Gender Equality Scorecard 2019/20, manufacturing is the industry with the fourth lowest gender pay gap, coming in at 12 percent. This is compared with 14.2 percent five years ago. Though lower than the national average, this still equates to full-time female-identifying employees earning $13,047 less annually than their male counterparts. 

As of 2020, women made up only 27 percent of Australia’s manufacturing workforce. This lack of representation in the Australian labour market continues to be a persistent factor underpinning the gender pay gap, and shouldn’t simply be accepted by employers, particularly with the candidate shortages currently plaguing businesses. 

While it is driven by the overarching social norms and stereotypes of the past, manufacturing employers can indeed take steps in the present to encourage a greater number of women to apply for roles within their businesses. By making yourself known as an equal-opportunity employer and writing job ads that are gender neutral, employers will see better hiring and business outcomes. Companies that fail to effectively champion gender diversity will significantly under-utilise their available talent pools, which can result in stunted business growth. 

The journey to closing the gender pay gap is a significant one for all Australian companies and those in hiring or leadership roles, which will not be achieved without a strategic and systematic approach. 

If you need assistance with inclusive recruitment practices, contact Acclaimed Workforce today.