The pay gap developed because gender norms influence how the work we do is valued.
Women and men have traditionally worked in different industries and different jobs; women spend more time out of the workforce, hampering their career progression; women do a far greater share of unpaid caring and domestic work, and more women work flexible hours.
Unconscious bias and discrimination has unfortunately crept in to most workplaces.
The occupations dominated by women are paid less than those dominated by men. But it's not just this clustering of women in lower-paid occupations that contributes to the gender pay gap. Even where women and men are doing the same work in the same industry, the gap exists.
It starts from pay differences during the initial appointments, and carries through promotions and other rewards. Women continue to be undervalued, relative to their male colleagues at all levels.
This gap - the difference between women's and men's average weekly full-time salary earnings, expressed as a percentage of men's earnings - is currently 14.1% (calculated by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, using Australian Bureau of Statistics data).
That means that women earn, on average, $239.80 less than men each week.
So how do you even know that gender disparity exists in your workplace?
Given the national figures, any woman working in the private sector on an individual contract can fairly safely assume that she is earning less than male counterparts performing the same role.
In the public sector and/or a workplace covered by awards, it is less likely. However, once a woman starts to move up the ladder and takes on individualised contracts, it is highly likely she will earn less than men in similar roles.
There is clear evidence from Graduate Outcomes Surveys that women are paid less than men for the same job at the point of hiring, and that women continue to be rewarded less as they progress through promotions within a company. The cumulative effect is that women are financially disadvantaged.
So what steps can you take to establish whether you're subject to a gender pay gap?
Many workplaces have a policy of confidentiality around remuneration.
Asking colleagues is not a reliable means of establishing pay differences either. You could ask the Human Resources department whether it has done a gender pay gap analysis for the company. If they haven’t, then go to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), which collects and analyses data each year from private sector organisations with 100 or more employees. If your employer hasn't reported to the WGEA, it might be time to ask why.
Any analysis of organisational data should include the average pay of women and men across the company, teasing it out by level and comparing averages for like-for-like roles. It's very useful information that identifies gender issues and where further action is needed.
But raising awareness of a gender pay gap is not enough. Nor is increasing people’s awareness of how unconscious bias works or making recruitment/promotion decisions transparent. We need to solve the problem.
To close the gender pay gap we need real change. We need to break up the clustering of women and men at different levels, and to ensure that all remuneration decisions are fair.
Professor Alison Sheridan, from the University of New England, has taught and researched issues around gender and paid work for nearly 30 years.
