It’s Equal Pay Day! HOORAY!
If you’re thinking that means we have reached gender pay equality, then think again! Pigs can’t fly yet.
Equal Pay Day – organised by the government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency — marks the day since the end of the financial year when women can claim to have earned the same as men.
That means since June 30 it has taken women on average about 70 extra days (or 40 working days) to catch up.
Just digest that for a second.
This perfectly demonstrates how if we keep going the way we are going, women are in for a lifetime of inequality (yay!). We’ll be facing a similar situation next year. Because we are already two months behind.
We keep on trucking, because we are absolute champs.
But this is an important reminder to keep fighting for pay equality and urging our business leaders to admit there is an endemic problem that desperately needs rectifying.
Equal Pay Day is calculated based on figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics putting our nation’s current gender pay gap at 16.2 per cent – a difference of $261.10 per week.
It’s narrowed slightly from 18.5 per cent in November 2014.
As Minister for Women Michaelia Cash has pointed out: “While this is a promising improvement, we have a long way to go.”
WGEA director Libby Lyons has seized on today to, once more, call for action from employers. Without it, we are missing out on huge benefits to both businesses and society.