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Gender Pay Gap : Inequity, Work And Society

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Gender Pay Gap: Inequity, Work and Society
In Australia over the last 20 years, it is documented that a person’s income and wages, differs based on one’s gender, known as the gender pay gap (The Conversation, 2017; Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), 2017c). This paper will discuss what a gender pay gap is, various economic explanations for this gap, summarise sociological responses, and identify possible policy recommendations and their implications. The gender pay gap is generally measured as the variance between men and women’s average weekly pay equivalent of full-time earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings (WGEA, 2017b). Unequal pay, where women and men do the same work and are paid at differing rates, based on …show more content…

Between 1996- 2016 the average weekly full-time earnings benefitted males by $261.3, with women earning $1369.7 compared to men earning $1631 (WGEA, 2017c). Over time the gender based average earnings between genders was a gap of 16.02% between 1995- 2015 and further reducing to 14.3% for 2015-2016 (WGEA, 2017b).
Considerable changes have taken place over the past two decades (WGEA, 2017c). Women have become more prominent within the workforce (WGEA, 2017c). Participation of women in the workplace has risen from 45% to 60% over the last 40 years (WGEA, 2017c, ABS, 2017a). Women’s education attainment has risen, showing a 28% increase since 1996 (ABS, 2017b; WGEA, 2017c). Despite this, earnings are not equal between male and female undergraduates (WGEA, 2017b). One suggestion is that women are choosing lower paid professions, contributing to an unequal distribution among part-time and full-time work (WGEA, 2017b).
Experience, age and personal factors in addition to workplace inequalities can influence a salary (WGEA, 2017b). The 2016 analysis by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), found that healthcare, retail and education sectors were highly dominated by females, and mining, utility services and construction were undertaken dominantly by men (WGEA, 2017c).
Despite increasing workforce participation and educational attainment, societal changes including;

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