New stats show Australia’s gender pay gap is about $40,000 a year for people aged 45 to 65. 

The federal government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency has completed its latest analysis, revealing a fairly bleak picture of gender equality in the private sector.

Women are still earning consistently less than men in every age bracket. Even in senior executive roles, women take home nearly $100,000 less per year on average than their male counterparts.

If trends continue at the rate set out in the data, millennial women currently in the workforce will earn just 70 per cent of men’s earnings by the time they reach age 45.

The data also shows that in 2021, at no age were more than 50 per cent of women working full-time, yet higher paid management opportunities were almost exclusively reserved for full time workers. 

The divergence in working patterns occurs from age 35 onwards, when men are predominantly working full time and women are predominantly working part time or casually.

Furthermore, men over the age of 55 are twice as likely to be in management than women. 

For the women who have made it to managerial ranks at the same age, two-thirds are in lower tiered management ranks.

The data shows that men out earn women across every generation. This peaks at ages 55 – 64, where men out earn women by 31.9 per cent, or more than $40,000 on average per year.

Even women who have reached senior executive and CEO roles at age 55 and over still face a large earnings gap, taking home about $93,000 per year less on average than their male senior executive and CEO counterparts.

“Too many employers are missing a huge talent pool by not encouraging and enabling women to work additional hours or in the managerial ranks,” says WGEA Director, Mary Wooldridge.

“With effective policies, workplaces can both enable women to work full-time if they chose to and make higher-paid managerial roles more accessible for those who work part-time.

“Leading employers are creating or redesigning roles to support part-time management and job-sharing structures, for example to make it possible for parents who may want to work school hours. In times of a tight talent market, attracting and retain highly skilled and capable women is more important than ever.”

The WGEA says employers should look at policies that focus on equal access to - and uptake of - workplace support for women and men throughout their working lives. 

These include gender-neutral parental leave policies, childcare subsidies and support, and flexible work policies which include targets for male and female uptake.

More details are accessible here.