Gender pay gap falling in 54.8% of Aussie businesses

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s latest gender pay gap snapshot shows slight improvements in addressing pay disparity, ahead of mandated company gender equality targets commencing this year.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA) snapshot for the 2024–25 year, released today (Tuesday, 3 March), has revealed that more than 50 per cent of employers reported having a gender pay gap larger than 11.2 per cent in favour of men (down 0.9 percentage point year on year). It further revealed that more employers have a gender pay gap in the target range of +/-5 per cent (22.5 per cent) compared to 2023–24 (21.3 per cent).

Elsewhere, WGEA noted that men were 1.8 times more likely to be employed in the highest-earning quartile, while women were 1.4 times more likely to be employed in the lowest-earning quartile. Despite this, there seemed to be some progress, with a 1 percentage point increase in women in the upper quartile, and a 0.9 percentage point decrease in women in the lowest-earning quartile.

The new data comes ahead of new requirements for organisations with more than 500 employees to submit gender pay equality targets for review in three years.

Understanding the gap through analysis

“Employers should treat gender equality like their other business goals. Do a detailed analysis to find the issues, create an action plan to address them and set targets to be accountable for ensuring progress happens,” Mary Wooldridge (pictured), WGEA chief executive, said.

Large differences in discretionary payments, like performance bonuses and overtime hours, remain a key driver of many employer gender pay gaps, the report found.

The latest snapshot found that while 68 per cent of employers conducted a gender pay gap analysis, only 24 per cent did a comprehensive analysis.

“You have to do the comprehensive pay gap analysis to really understand what’s driving [your pay gap], you need a plan, you need KPIs, you need to buy in from your executive team, and your boards and in doing that process, you’ll then identify whether it’s something like a recruitment challenge,” Wooldridge said.

In its 2024–25 snapshot, WGEA found that after conducting analyses, 51 per cent of respondents found the cause of the gap, and 24 per cent took action to review performance structures to ensure there was no bias.

Further, the findings revealed that 27 per cent of employers have a target to reduce the gender pay gap.

This snapshot used data drawn from 10,500 Aussie employers. Within this dataset, WGEA released the Commonwealth public sector employer gender pay gaps at the same time as the private sector for the first time.

“Employers and business leaders are starting to understand the importance of equality and diversity throughout their workplaces to improve decisions, have better engagement and higher productivity,” Wooldridge said.

“I am optimistic that we have momentum to improve outcomes and make sure that people do have genuinely fair and equal workplaces.”

World’s first target-setting requirements

Under the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Setting Gender Equality Targets) Bill 2025, which passed Parliament in March of last year, private sector employers will need to select their first targets for reporting between 1 April and 31 May 2026, while Commonwealth public sector employers have theirs due from 1 September to 31 October 2026.

The legislation targets “designated relevant employers” who directly employ 500 or more employees at any one time. These employers are required to submit three targets for the three years, consisting of “action” targets and “numeric” targets (one of which must be numeric).

The amendment states that upon failure to set targets, the designated relevant employer will lose access to government contracts, and if they do not have a reasonable excuse, they will be publicly named.

In 2024, the Law Council of Australia noted that the consequences of a public naming of non-compliant employers could lead to adverse impacts on their business.

Wooldridge told HR Leader that WGEA’s next snapshot, reflecting the 2026–27 period, will reflect the impacts of this new legislation.

“Publishing employer gender pay gaps is part of a suite of WGEA reforms designed to accelerate positive change. Shortly, large employers will select and commit to achieve three gender equality targets over the next three years, in a world-first initiative requiring demonstrated improvement in outcomes,” Wooldridge said.

Wooldridge stressed that with these target requirements in place, employers must ensure a safe workplace.

In March 2025, Wooldridge said: “Targets are specific, time-bound and measurable objectives that set a benchmark for employers to work towards. The evidence available shows they are effective in driving real change.

“By introducing a target-setting requirement, Australia is ensuring large employers are publicly accountable to take action and make demonstrable progress towards gender equality.”