Released on 24 January 2008 by the Minister for the Status of Women The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, new research by Macquarie University shows that even at the most senior levels of Australian business, women are not receiving equal pay for equal work.
Director of the Labour-Management Studies Foundation at Macquarie, Associate Professor Peter McGraw and consulting statistician Dr Margaret Mackisack, completed the Gender Income Distribution of Top Earners report on behalf of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA).
They analysed data collected as part of the 2006 EOWA Women in Leadership Census and examined the remuneration of the five most highly paid executives in the top 200 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).
Their report reveals that women hold just seven per cent of the Top Earner positions (80 positions out of 1136) compared with 93 per cent held by men. Female Chief Financial Officers and Chief Operating Officers earn just half the wage of their male equivalents and even in human resource positions, where women are more common, the pay gap is still 43 per cent. In CEO positions a female earns two thirds of the salary earned by her male counterpart.
In nine out of ten industry sectors, the female median salary is less than the male median salary and there is no industry in which women are more likely to be Top Earners than men.
Even in support roles, where women are concentrated, men are more likely than women to be a Top Earner. Women in support positions have less than a 50 per cent chance of being a Top Earner.
Director of the Labour-Management Studies Foundation at Macquarie, Associate Professor Peter McGraw and consulting statistician Dr Margaret Mackisack, completed the Gender Income Distribution of Top Earners report on behalf of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA).
They analysed data collected as part of the 2006 EOWA Women in Leadership Census and examined the remuneration of the five most highly paid executives in the top 200 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).
Their report reveals that women hold just seven per cent of the Top Earner positions (80 positions out of 1136) compared with 93 per cent held by men. Female Chief Financial Officers and Chief Operating Officers earn just half the wage of their male equivalents and even in human resource positions, where women are more common, the pay gap is still 43 per cent. In CEO positions a female earns two thirds of the salary earned by her male counterpart.
In nine out of ten industry sectors, the female median salary is less than the male median salary and there is no industry in which women are more likely to be Top Earners than men.
Even in support roles, where women are concentrated, men are more likely than women to be a Top Earner. Women in support positions have less than a 50 per cent chance of being a Top Earner.
