Yes, the gender pay gap in Australia is slowly closing, reaching record lows recently, with data from late 2025 showing women earning around 79 cents for every dollar a man earns (a gap of about 21%), driven by union advocacy, government initiatives, and improved reporting, but significant gaps remain, especially in leadership and specific industries, highlighting that progress is occurring but achieving full equality needs sustained effort.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data released today reveals Australia's gender pay gap is at the lowest ever level since records began, at 11.5 per cent. This means Australian women working full-time now earning, on average, more than $250 a week more since the Albanese Government was elected in May 2022.
The ABS data gender pay gap
As of May 2025, the full-time adult average weekly ordinary time earnings across all industries and occupations was $2106.40 for men and $1864.10 for women. For every dollar on average men earned, women earned 88 cents. That's $242.30 less than men each week.
The wage gap for how much women earn compared to men widened in 2024 compared to 2023, as the median earnings for women in general grew at a slower rate than pay for men. However, recent data show that the gap has narrowed again so far this year, but it's still below its peak of above 84% reached in mid-2023.
Proactive employers are embedding diversity and inclusion into their core business strategies and taking concrete steps to close the gap by improving transparency, and developing action plans that go beyond the current reporting requirements.” “Closing the Gender Pay Gap requires leadership, commitment, and action.
The gender pay gap is widest for Black and Hispanic women
Women of color are hit the hardest by the gender pay gap. On average, Black women working full time, year-round earned 67 percent as much as white, non-Hispanic men in 2023.
In fact, it could take roughly five generations to close the pay gap worldwide, according to 2024 estimates by the World Economic Forum. "Based on current data, it will take 134 years to reach full parity," the organization's latest global gender gap report said.
The correct answer is Iceland. Iceland has consistently ranked first in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index since 2009. The country achieved a score of 90.8% in the 2022 report, reflecting its exceptional efforts in closing the gender gap.
One-third of that work-experience pay gap is because women accumulate less time on the job than men. Women average 8.6 years at work for every ten years clocked by men because, on aggregate, they work fewer hours, take longer breaks between jobs, and occupy more part-time roles than men.
There could be many reasons for the existence of the gender pay gap. Some could be related to the level of education, work experience, or working part-time. There are more women than men in some economic sectors where average wages are lower.
Highest Gap in OECD: South Korea at 31.2%. Lowest Gap in OECD: Belgium has the most equal pay at 1.1%. Lowest Gap in EU: Luxembourg at -0.7%. Highest Gap in Europe: Estonia reports a significant gender pay gap, with women earning substantially less than men.
Coles Group owns Coles supermarkets among other Australian businesses — and has the lowest average total remuneration gender pay gap of all the companies on this list. Women employed by Coles Group are receive 6 per cent less than men in total annual compensation.
40:40:20 simply refers to the ratio of: 40% men, 40% women, 20% of any gender. It's a business practice that many organisations around the world have or are committing to, striving for gender equity not only at the top level, but across all levels of its business.
In 2019–20, the female dominated occupations with the highest proportion of women remain unchanged over the last decade:
Higher wages for women
On average, the wages of women represented by a union are 9.8% higher than those of nonunionized women with comparable characteristics (EPI 2025c). Further, there is suggestive evidence that within workplaces, union bargaining reduces gender wage gaps.
According to the ABS (May 2024), full-time workers in Australia earn an average of $100,016 per year before tax, which works out to be roughly $1,923 per week. Male workers get paid the most at $104,744 per year, while females make an average of $92,706 per year – or a difference of $12,038.
The gender pay gap is influenced by several factors, including: • discrimination and bias in hiring and pay decisions • women and men working in different industries and different jobs, with female-dominated industries and jobs attracting lower wages • women's disproportionate share of unpaid caring and domestic work • ...
New research from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) reveals that for Gen Z in full-time work aged 16–24, the gender pay gap has reversed, with women now slightly out-earning men.
Encourage Salary Negotiations
To address this, businesses should be encouraging employees to negotiate their salary and when promoting an available position withing the company, providing the specific salary for that position.
Finland, along with neighbours Sweden and Norway, has one of the strongest global reputations for gender equality. The Scandinavian country's government uses a systematic and target-oriented approach to tackle sexism, and has its own Gender Inequality Policy.
The World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Gender Gap Report has seen Australia rise 11 places in the global rankings to 13th out of 148 countries for gender equality, the highest ever ranking since the Index began in 2006.
The world's best places for work-life quality
It's 2025, and women still earn less money, dollar for dollar, than men. Why? We had been making progress on the wage gap, but new data shows that over the last two years, the gap has been widening. According to the Census Bureau last year, 2024, women earned around 81 cents for every dollar a man earned.
123 years. That's how long it will take to reach gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum's latest Global Gender Gap Report. It's a long time, but in 2024 that figure was 132 years, so we've come 11 years closer to full gender parity in the past 12 months.
Globally, gender parity has increased by +4.8 percentage points since 2006. In this coordinated push towards global parity, access to both economic and political opportunity has widened.