A human resources researcher says the gender pay gap may be easier to close if we could actually see it.

Professor Michelle Brown is an expert in human resource management at University of Melbourne, and says that secrecy around salaries obscures the important issue of inequality.

Professor Brown says that as the gender pay gap has increased over the last ten years, so has the prevalence of pay secrecy policies, under which employees are prevented from discussing their pay with colleagues.

“The Workplace Gender Equality Agency analysis shows the pay gap is largest when pay is secret,” she says.

Figures show a gender gap of about 20.6 per cent on the most secret individual agreements, while the gap is almost non-existent when pay is set publicly by an award. The gender pay gap is 16.9 per cent when salaries are set by a collective agreement, but performance payments and other incentives are often kept secret.

Professor Brown details the ways that secrecy widens the gap in a recent article for The Conversation.

She said that a big problem came from organisations becoming “able to pay employees as they think without having to justify the pay to employees”.

“Women are socialised not to negotiate – they assume they will be recognised and rewarded for good performance,” Prof Brown writes.

“Australia has had equal pay laws since the nineteen-seventies and these have been ineffective in eliminating the pay gap.

“It is hard to see how the reporting of pay data is likely to have any impact on the gender pay gap.

“A more effective approach is to remove restrictions of the sharing of pay information. The US and the UK have introduced provisions to promote pay transparency,” she said.

The comment section of the original article provides some intriguing insight into the debate too, with some men agreeing that openness should be encouraged, but arguing that “women’s work” inherently demands lower pay.