Female public servants earn an average of $19,000 a year less than men, according to an analysis that shows the APS still has a long way to go when it comes to gender equality.

Women working in the federal public sector earn 86 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts, according to a gender equality scorecard (insert link) released by the  Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) on Thursday.

 The WGEA Commonwealth Public Sector Gender Equality Scorecard: Key Employer Results from 2022, shows the total remuneration average gender pay gap of 13.5 per cent equates to a difference of $19,000 every year.

The good news is that the public sector gender pay gap is lower than the 21.7 per cent gap in the private sector.

The Scorecard is the first of a new annual report series publishing the results from mandatory Commonwealth public sector Gender Equality Reporting to WGEA against a suite of gender equality indicators.

As such it provides the first comparable results of the gender pay gap and gender equality performance of the Commonwealth public sector compared to Australia’s private sector, WGEA says.

The scorecard captures data from 37 public sector employers not previously been covered by Australian Public Service Commission or WGEA’s reporting including NBN Co, CSIRO, the AFT, the Reserve Bank and Australia Post.

Results don’t reflect good intentions

WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge says the public sector has benefited from gender equality commitments and reforms in areas the private sector struggles with, such as gender balance in management positions.

Commonwealth public sector employers are also trying to deliver flexibility to helps more women take leadership roles and drives gender balance in management positions.

“But more does need to be done across all employers to continue to reduce the gender pay gap, including to combat stereotypes that deter men from taking parental leave and around women in non-manager roles,” Ms Wooldrigde says.

More does need to be done across all employers to continue to reduce the gender pay gap, including to combat stereotypes that deter men from taking parental leave and around women in non-manager roles.

WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge

“A key message from this first Commonwealth Public Sector Gender Equality Scorecard is that good policies alone do not translate into outcomes.”

Other key findings

The scorecard is based on 116 Commonwealth public sector employer reports, representing nearly 340,000 employees, provided during 2022.

Other findings show almost half of all Commonwealth public sector employers have a gender-balanced management team compared to 27 per cent in the private sector. Twenty per cent have a male-dominated management team and 31 per cent have a women-dominated management team, compared to 57 per cent and 23 per cent respectively for the private sector.

Men are 2.5 times more likely to be in the highest paying quartile compared to 1.9 times in the private sector, driven in part by highly paid non-manager roles such as professionals, trades and technicians which predominantly employ men.

Three quarters of employees in the Commonwealth public sector work full‑time compared to 54 per cent in the private sector. Women are more likely to work full-time (73 per cent) than in the private sector where almost 3 in 5 women are employed part-time or casually.

Nearly half of public sector employers have a gender-balanced workforce (employing between 40 and 60 per cent of men and women), compared to 27 per cent in the private sector. In the Commonwealth public sector, women are 43.5 per cent of the total workforce.

 Women hold half of governing body positions, but fewer lead these bodies. Despite equal representation of women and men members on Commonwealth public sector governing bodies, fewer women hold the Chair position (42 per cent). However, this is significantly higher than the private sector where women hold 19 per cent of Chair positions.

Individual gender equality outcomes for the 116 Commonwealth public sector employers that reported to WGEA have been published on WGEA’s website in the Data Explorer.