Category Archives: Gender pay gap

Labor announces boost in taxpayer-funded paid parental leave to 26 weeks by 2026

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Leave is set to increase by two weeks a year from the present scheme of 18 weeks at minimum wage and can be split between partners

Commonwealth-funded paid parental leave will be increased to six months over the next four years with the Albanese government hailing the boost as the biggest change to the program since its inception.

In a pre-budget announcement, Labor said that from 2024 the government would add two weeks of paid parental leave (PPL) to the scheme each year until it reaches 26 weeks by 2026. The six months could be split between the parents of a newborn.

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Australian federal election 2022 live: Plibersek says Albanese has a ‘tough job’ as polls tighten

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AEC concedes some Covid-positive Australians ‘may not be able to vote’: prime minister responds after Labor announces policy costings; Covid and illness lead to drop in working hours; nation records at least 52 Covid deaths. Follow all the day’s developments live

Scott and Jenny Morrison are visiting Whitemore in the Labor-held electorate of Lyons in Tasmania this morning.

Brian Mitchell holds Lyons on a margin of 5.2%, although his buffer was inflated by the disendorsement of his Liberal opponent mid-campaign in 2019 for anti-Islamic social media posts. Morrison is still on the offence, seeking gains to offset expected losses elsewhere.

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Anthony Albanese pledges to lower cost of PBS medicines and boost EVs at Labor campaign launch

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Opposition leader also vows to make gender equity an objective of the Fair Work Act if ALP wins federal election on 21 May

Labor has promised to reduce the cost of medicines on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, roll out new charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and focus on improving pay equity for women if Anthony Albanese defeats Scott Morrison on 21 May.

The Labor leader used the party’s official election campaign launch in Perth on Sunday to unveil a promise to reduce the cost of drugs on the PBS by $12.50. Albanese told the party faithful gathered at Optus Stadium that meant the maximum price for medicines for millions of Australians would be $30.

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Report into the gig economy finds women are earning 37% less than men

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Men earn $2.67 per hour more than women on average, but 40% of workers don’t know hourly rate

A new report commissioned by the Victorian government has found gender inequality is entrenched in the gig economy, with women earning up to 37% less than men.

The report, produced by a Queensland University of Technology research team and released on Monday, summarises Australian and global studies and found the gig economy can “both reproduce and exacerbate existing gender inequalities in work”.

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Caring roles block career advancement for three in five women

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Research shows as many as 50% of ethnic minority carers say responsibilities hold them back from finding new positions

Three out of five women say their caring responsibilities for children and other vulnerable or elderly relatives are preventing them from applying for a new job or promotion, while only one in five men say the same, according to new research.

The poll of 5,444 people by Ipsos Mori and the charity Business in the Community (BITC) found that nearly half the workforce are combining paid work and care. Almost three in 10 adults have left or considered leaving a job because of difficulties in balancing work and care. The latter was particularly true of women.

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Covid has intensified gender inequalities, global study finds

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Researchers find women hit harder by negative social and economic impacts of the pandemic than men

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to reverse decades of progress made towards gender equality, according to a global study that reveals women have been hit much harder socially and economically than men.

Previously, coronavirus-related gender disparity studies have focused on the direct health impacts of the crisis. It is well known, for example, that across the globe men have experienced higher rates of Covid cases, hospitalisation and death. However, until now, few studies have examined how gender inequalities have been affected by the many indirect social and economic effects of the pandemic worldwide.

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Unesco warns of crisis in creative sector with 10m jobs lost due to pandemic

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Artists finding it harder than ever to make a living despite being part of one of the fastest growing industries

Ten million jobs in creative industries worldwide were lost in 2020 as a result of the Covid pandemic, and the increasing digitisation of cultural output means it is harder than ever for artists to make a living, a Unesco report has said.

Covid has led to “an unprecedented crisis in the cultural sector”, said Audrey Azoulay, the director-general of Unesco, the UN’s cultural body, in a foreword to the report. “All over the world, museums, cinemas, theatres and concert halls – places of creation and sharing – have closed their doors …

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‘She chopped her hair off’: Pakistani women’s struggle to play cricket

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In such a conservative country, young women often have to fight their own families first just to play the sport they love

Bisma Amjad plays cricket. She aspires to play internationally and was picked for Pakistan’s under-19 World Cup squad.

But when the pandemic came, because she was a woman, there was nowhere for her to practise, so she dressed as a man to play alongside male cricketers at “gully cricket” – the street game.

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Reminded of the gap: why men still get paid more in UK public sector

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Analysis: academy and health service trusts responsible for big disparities as overall public pay inequality rises

It is clear that the public sector pay gap reported to government remains stubbornly high, at 15.5% versus 9% in the private sector. So where within public services is this happening, and why?

In 2018, the first year of compulsory gender pay gap reporting, women working in the public sector earned 86p for every £1 their male counterparts did. In 2021, that dropped to 84p.

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Flexible working: ‘A system set up for women to fail’

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After the pandemic more women are choosing to work from home but that choice could damage career prospects

Employees want it, employers know they have to offer it; flexible working has transformed almost every office during the pandemic and it’s here to stay.

It is a change that has been demanded for decades by groups including women, those with caring responsibilities and disabled people. But economists and employment experts are warning it could lead to more inequality at the office, particularly for working mothers.

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Female directors wait longer than men for their big break, report reveals

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A huge equality gap in top jobs and pay has been highlighted between women TV documentary-makers and male colleagues

Television documentary teams in Britain today are full of ambitious and capable women but most of them have to wait much longer than their male colleagues to become directors and earn a bigger wage.

The findings of the campaigning group We Are Doc Women (WADW), released this weekend, have revealed that gender equality is still a goal, not a reality, in factual programme-making.

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Women stage ‘mass scream’ in Switzerland over domestic violence and gender pay gap

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Thousands of marchers screamed for a minute at 3.24pm – the time of day when women in effect start working without pay

Women across Switzerland have let loose with screams during a national protest demanding equal treatment and an end to violence at the hands of men.

Last year half a million people marched to highlight the nation’s poor record on women’s rights. This year’s version of what organisers call the Women’s Strike was more subdued on Sunday due to coronavirus restrictions.

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In New Zealand, we are starting to value women’s work fairly. It’s time for the world to follow

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On International Women’s Day, let’s commit to properly compensating women for the unpaid and underpaid work they have always done

The world would stop running were it not for the unpaid and underpaid work undertaken by women. It is past time for our contribution to be recognised, and remunerated fairly. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we are creating a new process to appropriately value the caring work traditionally undertaken by women.

It started in 2013, when a care and support worker named Kristine Bartlett, supported by her union (E Tū), filed a pay equity claim under the Equal Pay Act 1972. She made the case that the caring work she did was undervalued because it was mainly performed by women. This was compared to work that was male-dominated but required a similar level of skill, effort and responsibilities.

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Samira Ahmed reacts after winning equal pay claim against BBC – video

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The presenter said she was glad the case had been won and thanked the NUJ, her lawyers and barrister outside the BBC in London. Judges condemned the BBC’s defence that Ahmed’s job as presenter of the audience feedback show Newswatch was significantly different to Jeremy Vine’s on Points of View and criticised the difference of pay between her £440-an-episode rate and the £3,000 Vine received per episode

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Hollywood’s gender pay gap revealed: male stars earn $1m more per film than women

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Disparity is almost the same in 2015 as in 1980, say researchers who call for contracts to be made public

In the Richard Curtis film Notting Hill, the bumbling stockbroker Bernie, played by Hugh Bonneville, meets Anna Scott, unaware that Julia Roberts’s character is the world’s most famous female actor.

Upon learning her profession, he patronisingly commiserates with Anna about the low wages paid to actors, declaring them “a scandal”, and asks how much she received for her last movie. Without missing a beat, Anna replies “$15m”, the actual amount Roberts was paid to do the movie, a rare example of when an actress has earned more than her male counterpart – in this case, Hugh Grant. For a real scandal in acting has always been the huge gender pay gap.

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‘There are almost no women in power’: Tokyo’s female workers demand change

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Japan has a 27.5% gender pay gap and ranks just 110th in the world for gender equality – but social change is slowly happening

Last week, after Yumi Ishikawa’s petition against being forced to wear high heels at work went viral around the world, responses ranged from solidarity – with some cheering Ishikawa and denouncing “modern footbinding” – to surprised disappointment. In 2019, in a liberal democracy such as Japan, could the issue of women’s rights still be stuck on stilettos?

But the global spotlight on the hashtag #KuToo (a pun on a word for shoes and a word for pain) may have obscured what’s really happening in Japan. “It’s so trivial,” says one senior female publishing executive, who wished to remain anonymous. After all, on the streets of Tokyo, there is a growing movement for real change for women, not merely more comfortable footwear.

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Michelle Williams describes feeling of ‘futility’ on finding male co-star paid $1.49m more – video

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Actor Michelle Williams said she was ‘paralysed with feelings of futility’ after being 'paid less than $1,000 compared to the $1.5m' that Mark Wahlberg received 'for the exact same amount of work’ while reshooting the film All the Money in the World. Speaking in Washington DC on 2 April during a hearing about closing the gender pay gap, Williams said 'if it was like this for me, a white woman in a glamorised industry, how were my sisters suffering across their professions?' She said the lack of initial reaction was the most depressing element. The controversy only seemed to come to public attention, she said, after the actor Jessica Chastain tweeted about it

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Jobs for the boys: how the civil service is failing to close the gender pay gap

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Some Whitehall departments are taking innovative steps to tackle disparity – but in others, the problem is just getting worse

A once-in-a-lifetime professional opportunity to work at the heart of government and contribute to our future with the EU”. This job ad for a senior policy adviser, with a salary of up to £70,302 and the ability to work flexibly, is for the Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU). We know the civil service needs new staff – it is hiring at least 15,000 recruits to cope with whatever lies ahead in the UK’s relationship with Europe. More interesting is that the job was posted on Mumsnet. It’s a sign that some parts of the civil service are finally starting to think more innovatively about how to tackle its widening gender pay gap.

It’s no coincidence that DExEU, a new civil service department created in July 2016 after the Brexit referendum, has been more agile in addressing the gender pay gap, including leadership programmes for female staff. Clare Moriarty, its new permanent secretary, is one of just five women departmental bosses in Whitehall, out of a total of 16.

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Serena Williams backs US women’s soccer team’s discrimination case

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Tennis champion describes pay discrepancy between male and female squads as ‘ludicrous’

Serena Williams and other prominent past and present American tennis players have expressed their support for a lawsuit filed by the US women’s national soccer team against their federation alleging gender discrimination in wages and conditions.

All 28 members of the US squad were named as plaintiffs in a federal court in Los Angeles on Friday, International Women’s Day.

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