Achieving gender pay equity is a key component of working towards workplace gender equality, which is linked to improved productivity, performance, reputation and attraction as an employer. The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings for men and women, expressed as a percentage of men’s average earnings.

Many factors contribute to the gender pay gap, including:

• conscious and unconscious 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;
• lack of workplace flexibility to accommodate caring and other responsibilities, especially in senior roles;
• high rates of part-time work for women;
• women’s greater time out of the workforce for caring responsibilities impacting career progression and opportunities; and
• women’s disproportionate share of unpaid caring and domestic work.

Source: https://www.wgea.gov.au/the-gender-pay-gap

The gender pay gap at UNE is 12.9%, which is one percentage point higher than the average of the higher education industry.

To attract the best talent to UNE and reduce the gender pay gap, the University has committed to:

• a comprehensive Representation Action Plan that includes reviews of existing policies and processes; training and awareness raising activities to address bias and decision-making that may be adverse to women;
• applying for an exemption to be able to undertake targeted recruitment of women into roles where women are underrepresented including into executive roles and early career roles, and development of a comprehensive unit-based approach for the use of identified positions where the percentage of women falls below an identified target;
• publication of UNE’s Remuneration Framework for Executive;
• ensuring hiring managers and decision makers have access to relevant pay-equity data when considering higher duties allowance, loadings and remuneration.
• analysis of response data from casual staff from upcoming staff surveys to reduce to disparities between men and women engaged in casual employment;
• targeted leadership training for women including through external programs such as the Wattle Women in Leadership Program and internal programs such as the Academic Promotion Mentoring Program for Women; and
• mandatory training in Unconscious Bias for staff completing Recruitment Panel Training and those involved in Academic Promotions.