It’s been almost 64 days since the end of the financial year. That means the average full-time working woman has finally worked enough additional days to earn what the average full-time working man did in the 2011/12 year.
According the figures from the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, the gender pay gap is still at 17.5% and has barely moved in the last two decades. In 1994, it was actually smaller at 15.9%
For women in the financial services and insurance sector, they’ll have to wait a good few extra months to reach their equal pay day, given the sector has the highest gender pay gap at 32.7%.
“Every day should be equal pay day,” EOWA director Helen Conway said in a statement. “It’s time to correct the imbalance.”
Conway said that part of the problem is that work in female dominated sectors has been under-valued. “Caring skills, for example, have not been rewarded as favourably as technical,” she said.
Other contributors include outright discrimination, career breaks (women see an average 5% fall in wages following one year’s parental leave which expands to more than 10% after three years), and the methods used for setting pay.