Last week, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) published its annual Gender Equality Scorecard.

The Scorecard is the summary of the results of gender equality reporting from all private sectors in Australia with 100 or more employees. It’s a treasure trove of information on how men and women are valued in the economy.

Every year, WGEA reports on how many women there are in leadership. For the last few years, the number of women in leadership has remained stubbornly low. 21.9% of CEOs are women - slightly less than last year; and one in four boards have no women on them. The number of women managers has also not increased in a substantial way. 

However, this year for the first time, the information reported by employers also included the salaries of CEOs. The WGEA analysis found that the gender pay gap for CEOs is 27.1% - meaning women are paid substantially less than their male peers.

There were lots of thought pieces online trying to break down why women might be paid so much less. Women work in lower paid industries, or are more likely to be CEOs of smaller companies. Women are more likely to be promoted internally, or are more likely to come from lower earning positions like Chief Marketing Officer or Chief Operations Officer. 

But the WGEA report also looked at the difference between base pay and bonuses and discretionary pay. When looking at base salary, women CEOs are paid $74,923 less per year than their male counterparts. When looking at total remuneration, including bonuses and discretionary pay, the value of this gap increases to $158,632 per year.

The truth is there is still so much discrimination at play in the workplace. Studies have shown that women ask for raises as often as men, but are less likely to get them. Furthermore, women are much more likely to take time out of the workplace for caring responsibilities, and that is likely to have ramifications throughout their career. 

The WGEA data showed that the percentage of part time roles for managers had not gone up over the last year - it remained at 7%. But the one good thing it did show was that the proportion of parental leave taken by men increased to 17% this year. If anything, that’s a sign of hope. 

The more we equalise care, the more we equalise work. We have a long way to go in equalising work, but sometimes it’s good to remember that we have some signs of hope.