On Equal Pay Day this year, women will have worked an extra 50 days, on average, to earn the same as men.
The current national gender pay gap is 12 per cent, meaning women are paid an average of 12 cents less for every $1 a man makes.
While this is a small improvement from last year, it will come of little comfort to working women seeing more of their salaries eaten up by the spiralling costs of housing, groceries and other essentials.
As stated by Senator Larissa Waters, Greens Leader in the Senate and spokesperson on Women
"Today marks the 50 extra days women need to work, on average, to earn the equivalent salary to men.
"Women's work is still undervalued, whether it's paid or unpaid. Professions that are female dominated are on average paid less than male-dominated professions - despite being crucial to the functioning of society.
"The easiest way to close the gender pay gap is to pay women more.
"The Greens repeat our calls for the government to legislate for above-average wage increases over 10 years in women-dominated industries. That would see women paid fairly, boost women's economic security, and importantly ensure we can attract and retain staff in these critical sectors.
"The Government has recently announced it would increase early childhood workers' pay, but not by the amount they asked for, despite these workers being chronically underpaid and starting to leave the sector as a result.
"Teachers, nurses, cleaners - all are female-dominated industries that are critical to society functioning but workers are leaving those industries because they are not being paid enough.
"The national gender pay gap is now at 12 per cent, and while this is a small improvement on last year, that will be small comfort for women working 50 days for free and wondering why there is any gender pay gap in 2024.
"The gender pay gap leads to a gap in retirement income, with women retiring into poverty after a lifetime of care and underpaid work. We know the fastest growing cohort of homelessness is women over 55.
"This year we saw WGEA provide employer-level data on the gender pay gap for the first time, a win for the Greens and advocates who have long-called for this to be made public.
"Waiting 50 more years for pay equity is not a fair deal for women - we need the government to prioritise paying women fairly in what is already a cost of living crisis."
