APS gender pay gap beats wider public sector
The Australian Public Service (APS) has a gender pay gap of 5.7% – a figure that is lower than the wider public sector, and significantly lower than the private sector.
The latest available data, covering 2023, was published last week by Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).
It shows that the APS total remuneration gender pay gap – which covers salaries, superannuation, overtime, bonuses and other additional payments – was 5.7% in 2023, compared to 6.4% across the whole public sector, and 21.1% in the private sector.
The pay gap at the APS – which is Australia’s federal civil service – is also lower than across non-APS Commonwealth employers, where it stands at 8.8%. This comprises government bodies that are not subject to the Public Service Act, such as the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CISRO), the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, and the Civil Aviation Authority.
The WGEA statistics cover 120 public sector workplaces with 100 or more staff.
Of those, 54 have a pay gap within the target range of between –5% and +5%. Seven employers within three portfolios – the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Treasury, and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts – have a gender pay gap in favour of women.
Mary Wooldridge, WGEA’s chief executive, said the public sector’s positive results show what can be achieved when employers use long-term and deliberate actions that address gender equality. This includes conducting a gender pay gap analysis and formulating a gender-equality strategy.
“The Commonwealth public sector has achieved gender-balance in the composition of the workforce, at managerial level and in the upper quartile of remuneration. This is a critical driver of the lower gender pay gaps reported,” she added.
Read more: Report finds Australian Public Service making ‘significant’ progress on gender equality
Base salary pay gap: a different story
However, in terms of the base salary gender pay gap, while the APS still performs significantly better than the private sector, there is a reversal in its performance on this metric compared to non-APS Commonwealth agencies and the total public sector.
The base salary gender pay gap in the APS was 4.6% in 2023, higher than the 3.2% across non-APS Commonwealth agencies and 2.8% in the total public sector. The base salary gender pay gap in the private sector is 16.1%.
According to WEGA’s report, the difference between the total remuneration and base salary gender pay gaps shows that across the Commonwealth public sector, men are receiving greater financial benefit from payments above base salary than women. The impact of this more than doubles the average gender pay gap, pushing it out of the target range to a gap in favour of men.
“The difference between the total remuneration and the base salary gap shows the value of these additional payments,” it said, which adds 3.6 percentage points – or AUS$5,373 – to the gender pay gap.
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Representation at top levels – and ‘more work to be done’
WGEA attributes the “substantially better” outcome in the public sector compared to the private sector primarily to the achievement of gender balance at managerial and board levels. For example, the government has reached its target for women to hold half of all government board positions.
While men are 1.3 times more likely to be in the upper quartile of earners across the public sector, women account for 56% of the upper earning quartile at APS employers.
However, when compared to their representation in the overall workforce, there is an over‑representation of men in the upper quartile and of women in the lower quartile in both APS and non-APS employers.
In her foreword to the report, Wooldridge said that “work still needs to be done to improve gender balance in both pay and composition”.
She said particular focus should be paid to payments above base salary, and that to reduce their gender pay gaps, employers should “create pathways and set targets for men’s employment in women-dominated roles and women’s employment in men-dominated roles”.
She added that men account for only 11% of all primary carer’s leave taken and that “Commonwealth public sector employers need to work hard to ensure cultural change to remove real or perceived penalties for taking time out for caring roles and ensure more men have confidence to take primary carer’s leave”.
After two years of publishing the gender pay gaps of Australia’s private sector companies, this report marks the first time WGEA has done so for the public sector. Wooldridge said this “enhanced transparency and accountability is a catalyst for further action”.
Read more: Canada’s public sector beating private sector on narrowing the gender wage gap, report finds
About Mia Hunt
Mia has been editor of globalgovernmentforum.com since 2019. She has 15 years’ experience as a journalist and editor and specialises in writing for civil and public servants worldwide, including covering sustainability policy and related issues. She has led the Global Government Women’s Network since it launched in 2023. Previously, she covered commercial property having been market reports and supplements editor at Property Week and deputy editor at Retail Destination. She graduated from Kingston University London with a first-class honours degree in journalism and was part of the team that produced The River newspaper, which won Publication of the Year at the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2010.
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