On average, women in Australia are paid 14 per cent less than men and will have to work an additional 60 days after the end of the financial year in order to take home the same yearly salary as the average man. So what's contributing to this pay divide, and how can it be fixed?
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00:00 Is there a gender pay gap?
00:02 Well, yes.
00:04 And no.
00:07 And it depends on who you ask.
00:09 - Over the course of her career,
00:11 a working woman with a college degree
00:13 will earn on average hundreds of thousands of dollars
00:17 less than a man who does the same work.
00:19 Now that's wrong.
00:21 - And in fact, if you look at this nonsense
00:23 about women are paid like 70 whatever cents for every man,
00:27 which obviously that's not true
00:29 because if that was true, I would only hire women
00:31 and pay them 77 cents a dollar.
00:33 I mean, if you could actually hire women cheaper than men,
00:36 I mean, why would I ever hire a man?
00:39 I would only hire women.
00:40 - I mean, women are not paid the same amount of money
00:43 as blokes in so many professions.
00:45 And I think we need to pay women more in sport,
00:50 in all sorts of different jobs.
00:52 - Regardless of whether the product is good.
00:54 - So you might as well say that brown eyed people
00:56 are more than blue eyed people and call it discrimination,
00:59 based on this data in the same way that we're saying gender
01:02 is being discriminated against.
01:04 Neither are legitimate
01:05 'cause you just haven't actually broken it down
01:07 to see what the real comparisons are.
01:09 - The gender pay gap is calculated
01:11 by taking all of women's wages, all of men's wages,
01:14 lining them up from highest to lowest
01:16 and then comparing the middle number or the median.
01:20 In Australia, the gender pay gap is at just 14%.
01:24 This means each week men are earning an average of $263.90
01:29 more than women.
01:31 It doesn't mean that women with the same expertise
01:34 and experience are being paid 14% less than men
01:37 with the same expertise and experience.
01:39 That would be gender discrimination
01:41 and it's very much illegal.
01:43 But it does mean that in order for women
01:45 to earn the same average salary as men in Australia,
01:48 women must work an additional 60 days
01:51 after the end of the financial year.
01:53 So how are women being paid less than men?
01:56 Well, there's a number of factors.
01:58 Women tend to dominate in lower paying professions,
02:01 including administration jobs, teaching and healthcare.
02:04 While men tend to be in trade and labor jobs
02:08 and other professions with higher wage ceilings.
02:11 A lot of the male dominated professions
02:13 do not have university degrees attached to them.
02:16 While a lot of the female dominated professions do.
02:20 Right now, for every 100 women enrolled
02:22 in university in Australia, there are just 72 men.
02:27 This means there's a difference
02:28 in how much debt is being accrued
02:31 and how quickly that can be paid down.
02:33 On average, it takes an Aussie university graduate
02:36 with a basic bachelor degree,
02:38 about a decade to completely pay off their student loans.
02:42 So on average, a lot more women are starting out
02:45 in the workforce with a higher education debt to pay back,
02:49 which will affect how much they are able to take home
02:51 in the first 10 years on the job.
02:54 When you start to look at managerial roles,
02:56 you start to see an even clearer picture
02:59 of the gender divide.
03:00 While women make up half the workforce overall,
03:04 women are underrepresented in CEO positions
03:07 and on company boards.
03:09 Frankly, the higher up you go, the fewer women you see.
03:12 But then, even when they're in the same industries,
03:16 women tend to stay in junior positions
03:19 while men are elevated to senior roles faster.
03:22 The divide widens with age
03:24 and especially after having children.
03:27 The pay gap between workers aged 18 to 39
03:30 around the world is near zero,
03:32 but things start to change around the age of 40.
03:36 In 2017, it was calculated that 56% of women
03:40 scaled back their work hours
03:41 or switched to a less demanding job
03:43 after the birth of their first child.
03:46 That was compared to 19% of first-time fathers
03:49 who did the same.
03:50 But even if the impact on a man's career
03:53 after he becomes a father might be smaller,
03:56 it doesn't mean he doesn't pay a price.
03:59 Men often have to sacrifice time with their families
04:02 in order to keep progressing in their career.
04:05 - Many men say, "Well, I have work and I support my family,
04:08 "but I see my family very little.
04:10 "I would like to be much more involved
04:13 "in my family's lives."
04:15 - So how do we fix the parental issue for both sides?
04:18 Well, one solution would be to introduce
04:21 more workplace rights for men.
04:24 Now, before you revoke my feminist card
04:27 and cancel me on Twitter,
04:28 hear me out because this could work.
04:31 Some companies around the world
04:32 have introduced a dedicated properly paid leave period
04:36 just for fathers that equals the time and pay
04:39 offered to women on maternity leave.
04:42 When men are allowed to take extended parental leave,
04:45 without sacrificing their pay packet,
04:48 it breaks the perception that women
04:49 might be more of a risk to a company
04:51 because they are more likely to take extended time off.
04:55 So if the entire workforce, regardless of gender,
04:58 has the same access to adequate family leave entitlements,
05:02 it creates a more supportive environment,
05:04 both at work and at home.
05:06 (gentle music)
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