Gender Inequality
Equality of wages in Australia is of high concern, and has been for a long period of time. On no account of Australia's history, have women and men's wages ever been equal, rather they have always had a significant gap between them. This has seen women as undervalued, causing a lot of discrimination and hardship in the workplace for women. Males have been seen to dominate the high wages in the workplace of every industry by receiving higher benefits, over-award payments, superannuation and greater chances of promotion. Legislations, Awards and wage rates have been developed to try and decrease the wage gap, however none have had full effect in achieving equality. Strategies are in a high need of being adopted and implemented in the workplace, to try and overcome this wage difference before it heightens. Why do Australian women earn less than Australian men? How might this be remedied? The quest for equal pay has been a highly emotive and political debate, spanning a number of decades. After thirty years of equal pay legislation, however, the gender wage gap in the Australian workplace continues, females earning about 8% less than their male counterparts in all industries and all-major occupational groupings. A multitude of f
In 1912, Justice Higgins set the basic wage for female employees, on the basis of what sum was necessary to satisfy the needs of an average female employee. 00 per week less (Gray, 2001b:1; Edwards and Magarey, 1995:151; Gray, 2003:1) The question remains then why, in spite of legislated equal pay provisions is there still such a significant wage gap? What is causing such segmentation? The answer lies in a number of contributing factors. Another factor is the disproportionate number of women working part time (Gray, 2002b:2). The result was that the female wage was set at 54% of the male basic wage, "Women did not compete with men for the same jobs, Justice Higgins favoured paying women less" (Gray, 2002:1; Labour Research Centre, 1990:7). By introducing this concept the 25% pay difference between women and men gradually decreased (in 1969 women were earning 85% of male wage (Gray, 1999:2)). Essentially all these can be grouped into two categories: equal pay and equal opportunity factors (Gray, 1999:3). The Industrial system fails to recognise skills possessed by women as actually valuable. The origins of the wage gap can be found in the long history of wage determination in Australia, commencing with the Harvester case in 1907. Employers have avoided equal pay by reclassifying women, by giving over-award payments to men and by not promoting women. The undervaluation of women's skills is one of the equal pay factors that contribute to the earnings gap. Women's skills are often depicted as `natural attributes' or 'social skills', rather than industrial or workplace skills. This deliberately awarded male and female employees the same wage increase and encouraged unions, employers and the Federal Government to pursue equal pay (Labour Research Centre, 1990:9). An examination of history suggests that the current situation is not a predetermined inevitability, but is rather the result of a number of Industrial Relations decisions, the effect of which was to create a difficult climate in which to achieve pay equity for women (Labour Research Centre, 1990:2). This case saw the creation, by Justice Higgins, of a male-based family wage, in which the breadwinner status of males was assumed, and from which women's wages would be measured and set in the future (Labour Research Centre, 1990:8).
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