But with all this sunlight has come much confusion. For example, the government proudly said in August that the pay gap was fair 11.5 percentbased on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics which measures the average regular weekly earnings of full-time workers over the age of 18. In dollar terms, women earn 0.89 cents for every $1 men earn, which equates to $231.50 less in a woman’s paycheck each week.

The problem with the ABS estimate is that it excludes part-time workers, as well as overtime pay and bonuses.

This is important for two reasons: first, because Australia has among the highest rates of part-time employment of any OECD country; and second, because penalties, bonuses and other incentives make up a significant portion of many people’s take-home pay.

At the investment bank Morgan Stanleyfor example found the average pay gap when looking at base salaries to be 25 percent (still way too high), but grew astronomically to nearly 50 percent (48.2, to be exact) after bonuses were factored in.

Unsurprisingly, when the WGEA calculated the gender pay gap based on these factors, it found that the average pay gap in 2023-2024 was 21.8 percent, and the median was 18.3 percent.

In his Equality Scorecardpublished earlier this month, the WGEA put it plainly: “For every $1 a man earns, a woman earns 0.78 cents on average. This adds up to an annual difference of $28,425.”

Loading

One of the main reasons for such a large and persistent gap is where women sit in the workplace structure. For example, 25 percent of Australian companies still have no female directors, while 78.1 percent of chief executives are men and less than half of all managers are women (42.2 percent).

As the scorecard notes, men are 1.9 times more likely to be in the quartile with the highest wages than women, and women are 1.5 times more likely to be in the quartile with the lowest income than men.

The reasons for this persistent gap are, of course, many. Some experts believe the most common factors at play are that women are more likely to take time off from their careers to have children and that they are more likely to work part-time.

But research published by the economic institute e61 in May challenged this, showing that women were likely to be paid 15 percent less than their male counterparts, even when their education levels, age, and family life were the same.

Still, there are some positives. In most female-dominated industries such as education and healthcare, the median pay gap is just 2.4 percent and the average 5.5 percent. And in gender-balanced industries such as retail, real estate, travel and hospitality, the median is 9.1 percent.

But even where it is smaller, there is a lot of room for improvement. In midwifery, for example, where the workforce is 99 percent female, women are still paid 19 percent less than their male colleagues.

Similarly, female-owned retail companies such as Lorna Jane and Pandora played a role wage differences between the sexes of 37 percent and 52 percent respectively – Citing the dominance of men in higher paying management and executive roles as the reason for such large gaps. Feel like screaming after reading that? Me too.

If there is a silver lining, it’s that despite how awful the picture may seem, it gets better. Next year, data, reports and scorecards will be a little more normal for all of us.

But between now and the end of the year, gentlemen, if you see your female colleagues taking it a little easier than usual, let them. God knows you’ve earned it and for deeply flawed reasons they haven’t.

Victoria Devine is an award-winning retired financial advisor, best-selling author and host of Australia’s No.1 finance podcast, She’s on Money. Victoria is also the founder and co-director of Zella Money.

• The advice provided in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ investment or financial product decisions. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.

Expert tips on how to save, invest and get the most out of your money delivered to your inbox every Sunday. Sign up to our newsletter for real money.