“The Equal Pay Day marks the period of extra days in the current year which women need to work to achieve the same wages that men earned during the previous financial year.
Equal Pay Day recognises how much longer women have to work to earn the same as men in one year. So, for every 12 months that men work, for example, women may have to work 15 months – and the end of that third month of the year is Equal Pay Day.
We mark this day as a way of drawing attention to the wage gap that exists in most countries between women and men. Our aim is to work towards reducing the damaging and substantial income gap between women and men, and to do this we want to encourage and motivate BPW affiliates all over the world to establish an Equal Pay Day in their own country.
Our task is to put this issue on the public agenda by raising awareness about the issue of equal pay and making ‘wages’ a more acceptable subject of discussion. Only then will our country’s leaders be moved to initiate a policy review.
In Australia
The gender pay gap is around 17% and has been for around 20 years. Hard to believe isn’t it? But it’s real.
Every year the percentage is calculated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and is based on Average Weekly Earnings data. There’s no one cause of the gap, and no one solution. In fact most of the gap occurs because of unconscious bias. Employers don’t deliberately pay men and women differently – that is illegal; but they might recruit differently, create different position descriptions, have different expectations or promote differently depending on whether you are a male of female – without even realising it.”
For more information, visit: http://www.equalpayday.com.au/