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Gender Pay Equity and Comparable Worth in Australia: A Reassessment

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  • Mark Wooden

Abstract

The Australian labour market is characterised by a persistent earnings differential between men and women. This article examines the contribution made by gender‐based occupational segmentation to that gap using data from the 1993 Survey of Training and Education. It is estimated that occupational segmentation is responsible for between 3.9 and 4.9 percentage points of the earnings differential when measured across all employees. The comparable range after excluding managerial employees, however, is only 2.1 to 3.6 percentage points. Finally, the importance of segmentation for the gender earnings gap is found to be directly correlated with age, suggesting the intriguing possibility that the occupation‐based inequity in pay will work itself out over time. That said, other explanations for this age effect also exist.

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  • Mark Wooden, 1999. "Gender Pay Equity and Comparable Worth in Australia: A Reassessment," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 32(2), pages 157-171, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:32:y:1999:i:2:p:157-171
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.00102
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    Cited by:

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    2. Jeff Borland & Michael Coelli, 2016. "Labour Market Inequality in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 92(299), pages 517-547, December.
    3. Therese Jefferson, 2005. "Women and Retirement Incomes in Australia: A Review," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(254), pages 273-291, September.
    4. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Tan, Michelle, 2011. "Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-13, January.
    5. Kristy Eastough & Paul W. Miller, 2004. "The Gender Wage Gap in Paid‐ and Self‐Employment in Australia," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 257-276, September.
    6. Elisa Birch, 2006. "The public-private sector earnings gap; in Australia: a quantile regression approach," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 9(2), pages 99-123, June.
    7. S. C. Noah Uhrig & Nicole Watson, 2020. "The Impact of Measurement Error on Wage Decompositions: Evidence From the British Household Panel Survey and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 49(1), pages 43-78, February.
    8. Lin Xiu & Morley Gunderson, 2015. "Occupational segregation and the gender earnings gap in China: devils in the details," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(5), pages 711-732, August.
    9. Kennedy, Tom & Rae, Maria & Sheridan, Alison & Valadkhani, Abbas, 2017. "Reducing gender wage inequality increases economic prosperity for all: Insights from Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 14-24.
    10. Maryam Safari & Jacqueline Birt & Yi Xiang, 2022. "The sociology of compensation inequality in upper‐echelon positions: evidence from Australia," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(2), pages 2615-2649, June.
    11. Elisa Rose Birch & Paul W. Miller, 2006. "How Does Marriage Affect the Wages of Men in Australia?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(257), pages 150-164, June.
    12. Hiau Joo Kee, 2006. "Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor? Exploring the Australian Gender Pay Gap," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(259), pages 408-427, December.
    13. Ian Watson, 2010. "Decomposing the Gender Pay Gap in the Australian Managerial Labour Market," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 13(1), pages 49-79.

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