Two people can do similar work, be paid fairly against their own award or contract, and still sit on opposite sides of a national statistic. That gap between individual fairness and workforce-level outcomes is what the gender pay gap measures. It’s why an employer can be fully compliant with equal pay law and still have a pay gap.
As at May 2026, Australia’s gender pay gap is 11.3%, the lowest on record. This article covers what that number actually measures, how it varies by industry and sector, what drives it, what the law requires, and what employers can practically do about it.
What the gender pay gap measures and how it differs from equal pay
Equal pay means paying people the same for the same or comparable work. It’s a legal obligation under the Fair Work Act 2009, enforceable by the Fair Work Ombudsman, and it applies to every employer regardless of size.
The gender pay gap is a workforce-level statistic. It compares the average or median earnings of all men against all women across an organisation, an industry, or the whole economy, regardless of what roles they hold.
The distinction matters because the two can diverge completely. A cafe paying every barista the same hourly rate meets its equal pay obligations. If the same cafe’s managers are mostly men and its casual floor staff are mostly women, it will still show a pay gap. Nothing unlawful has happened; the gap reflects who holds which roles, not what each role pays.
This is why “we pay everyone the same rate” doesn’t answer the question. Closing a pay gap usually means looking at composition, such as who gets hired into what, who gets promoted, who works reduced hours and what that costs them, rather than adjusting individual pay rates.
Where the data comes from
Two official sources, measuring different things:
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publishes Average Weekly Earnings twice a year (February and August). This is the source of the headline national figure. It covers full-time adult base earnings across the private and public sectors.
- The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) runs a mandatory annual Employer Census. Private sector employers with 100 or more employees are required to report. WGEA’s figures use total remuneration, including bonuses, overtime, superannuation and additional payments, and include part-time and casual employees on an annualised full-time-equivalent basis.
Because WGEA captures discretionary pay and ABS doesn’t, WGEA’s numbers are consistently and substantially larger. Both are correct. Quoting one and describing it with the other’s methodology is the most common error in coverage of this topic.
How big is the gap in 2026?
In dollar terms, using ABS full-time adult average weekly ordinary time earnings:
| Men | Women | Gap | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | $2,181.00 | $1,934.50 | $246.50 |
| Annualised (×52) | — | — | ≈ $12,818 |
That works out to women earning about 88.7 cents for every dollar men earn, on this measure.
Private versus public sector
The gap is wider in the private sector, where pay is set with more individual discretion and less collective coverage:
| Sector | Men | Women | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private | $2,139.50 | $1,840.80 | 14.0% |
| Public | $2,396.40 | $2,153.10 | 10.2% |
(Calculated from ABS Average Weekly Earnings, May 2026, full-time adult ordinary time earnings, original series.)
On WGEA’s broader total-remuneration measure the sector difference is far starker (a 21.1% average gap in the private sector against 6.4% in the public sector) because discretionary payments like bonuses and overtime are where much of the difference sits.
By industry, including one result that surprises people
Calculating the same measure industry by industry produces a ranking that cuts against a lot of received wisdom:
| Industry | Gap | Weekly difference |
|---|---|---|
| Administrative & support services | 24.3% | $519.30 |
| Health care & social assistance | 24.2% | $598.60 |
| Information media & telecommunications | 20.2% | $587.30 |
| Professional, scientific & technical services | 19.0% | $488.80 |
| Financial & insurance services | 18.9% | $486.60 |
| Mining | 14.2% | $472.50 |
| All industries | 11.3% | $246.50 |
| Retail trade | 7.6% | $123.70 |
| Education & training | 7.2% | $166.70 |
| Public administration & safety | 3.9% | $86.10 |
| Construction | 3.1% | $62.00 |
| Other services | −3.8% | −$60.80 (favours women) |
(Calculated from ABS Average Weekly Earnings, May 2026, Table 10, full-time adult ordinary time earnings.)
Two results deserve explanation, because taken at face value they’re misleading.
Health care and social assistance shows one of the largest gaps despite being a heavily female workforce. This isn’t a paradox; it’s the mechanism. The industry spans specialist medical roles at one end and aged care and disability support at the other. Men are concentrated in the higher-paid clinical roles; women dominate the lower-paid care roles. A large gap in a female-majority industry is exactly what occupational segregation within an industry looks like.
Construction shows one of the smallest gaps, which does not mean construction has solved anything. The measure only counts full-time employees. Women in construction are largely in professional, administrative and management roles rather than on the tools, so the women being counted are being compared against a male workforce that includes a lot of trades. The composition of who gets measured flatters the number. WGEA’s employer-level data, which captures total remuneration and a broader employee base, places construction among the industries with the largest gaps.
Both examples make the same point: a single industry figure is a starting question, not a finding.
What causes the gender pay gap?
Occupational segregation
The single largest driver. Men and women are distributed unevenly across industries and across roles within industries, and the industries and roles where women concentrate are, on average, paid less. This operates at both levels: between industries (mining versus aged care) and within them (specialist versus support roles in health).
Caregiving and reduced hours
Women take more career breaks for caring and are far more likely to work part-time. Roughly 57% of employed women work full-time compared with about 80% of men. Reduced hours compound over a career: less time accruing experience, fewer promotion cycles, lower superannuation balances, and a smaller base for every subsequent pay rise.
The effect shows up decades later. Lower lifetime earnings mean lower retirement savings, which is why the superannuation gap is wider than the pay gap that produced it.
Discretionary pay
Bonuses, overtime, allowances and commissions are where gaps concentrate. WGEA’s analysis found the midpoint of employer gender pay gaps on discretionary pay alone is 29.7%. This means half of reporting employers pay men more than 29.7% more than women in bonuses, overtime and additional payments. This is a category where employer decisions are direct and reviewable, which makes it one of the more tractable places to start.
Representation in senior roles
Men remain close to twice as likely as women to hold the highest-paid roles. Because senior salaries carry disproportionate weight in any average, leadership composition moves an organisation’s pay gap more than almost anything else.
Pay opacity
Where pay is not visible and criteria for increases are not written down, disparities persist because nobody can see them. Pay secrecy clauses like contract terms preventing employees from discussing their pay are now prohibited under the Fair Work Act.
What employers can actually do
1. Run a pay analysis
Start with what your payroll already holds: earnings by gender, by role, by pay quartile. The mechanics are the same as any payroll audit, you’re just cutting the data a different way. Look at four things:
- Like-for-like: are people in the same role at the same level paid the same? Differences here are an equal pay issue and need fixing directly.
- Composition: who sits in your top and bottom pay quartiles?
- Discretionary pay: who receives bonuses, overtime and allowances, and how is that decided?
- Progression: who has been promoted or received an increase in the past two years?
The first is a compliance question. The other three are where most of the gap actually lives.
2. Write down how pay decisions get made
Salary bands, criteria for increases, and a documented process for who approves what. Most unexplained disparities trace back to inconsistent discretion rather than deliberate decisions. This is why writing down how you decide salary increases matters more than the size of any individual raise.
3. Make flexibility available to everyone, and make it survivable
Flexible arrangements only narrow gaps if they don’t come with a career penalty, and if men use them too. Where flexible work is available in principle but taken up almost exclusively by women, and where taking it up quietly removes someone from promotion consideration, it can widen the gap rather than close it.
4. Review recruitment and promotion
Look at who applies, who gets shortlisted, and who gets through. Composition is the largest single lever on a pay gap, and it moves at hiring and promotion, so the way you hire employees shapes your gap more than any pay adjustment made afterwards.
5. Measure again next year
A single measurement is a snapshot. The value is in the trend, which means using the same method each time and documenting what you did.
Frequently asked questions about the gender pay wage gap in Australia
Can I have a pay gap even if I pay everyone fairly?
Yes, and most employers do. A pay gap reflects workforce composition as much as pay decisions. Finding one is not an admission of wrongdoing. It’s information about where your workforce sits.
Which measure should a small business use?
Median, reported alongside your headcount by gender. With a small team, one senior hire or departure can swing an average dramatically, so state the number of employees behind the figure.
Do I have to report anything?
Only if you have 100 or more employees, in which case you report annually to WGEA. Below that there’s no obligation, though the underlying equal pay obligations under the Fair Work Act apply to every employer regardless of size.
What if an employee raises a pay discrimination concern?
Take it seriously and check the specific comparison they’re raising. Employees can also approach the Fair Work Ombudsman. Note that they have a legal right to discuss their pay, and any contract clause purporting to prevent that is unenforceable.