Trends in Australia's Gender—Wage Ratio

ABSTRACT

Contrary to expectations, Australia's gender-wage ratio (GWR) has remained remarkably stable throughout a prolonged era of significant labour- market deregulation. This article examines recent trends in Australia's GWR and cautions against its use as an accurate measure of women's and men's labour-market experiences. In particular, three key issues need to be considered: (i) women's patterns of workforce participation and over-representation in parttime work; (ii) different methods of pay-setting relevant to different labour-market sectors; and (iii) data limitations on our capacity to fully monitor developments in some labour-market sectors.