Gender Equality in Australian Workplace

This assignment analyzes the effectiveness of Australian policies promoting gender equality in the workplace. It compares these policies with those in Nordic countries, highlighting disparities and potential areas for improvement. The research explores topics such as parental leave, occupational representation, and societal attitudes towards gender roles. The aim is to identify gaps between policy implementation and real-world outcomes.

Gender Discrimination in Australia
Analysis Of Findings :
Question 1: In what ways do Australian women experience Gender
Discrimination?
Gender discrimination is the discrimination or prejudice based on the sexual identity or
gender orientation of a particular individual. Sex discrimination in the workplaces has
become one of the major problems in Australia, which is affecting the social sustainability
and ethical balance. Gender discrimination is affecting women’s empowerment and social
balance within a particular society. It is causing poor image and profitability of different
institutions and organizations. The three major points of gender discrimination are the pay
gap, barriers to leadership roles in workplaces and sexual harassment both on professional
and domestic levels.
Firstly, the pay gap is one of the major concerns of gender discrimination in Australia.
Gender pay gap is the average difference between the salaries of men and women for the
same job. As illustrated in the graph below, Australian men of particular skill level earn
24% more comparing to the women of similar skill (APH 2017). In addition, standard
working hour for the male employees is 6 hours and 30 minutes (Jayachandran 2015).
Alternatively, the standard working hours for the women employees is 7 hours and 30
minutes (ibid.). This is likely because it includes fulltime and part time working women.
Australian women with dependant children often tend to choose working part time or doing
unpaid work at home in order to accommodate family responsibilities. Keely (2011) stated
that the lack of equal remuneration is one of the major reasons behind these discrimination
challenges. He further added that it is a major indication that the Australian workplaces are
suffering from gender discrimination on the basis of pay gap and working hour gap (Keely
2011). The problem associated with gender pay gaps might not be the educational
background affiliated with both genders rather it might be the different ideologies of people
who believe that women are not as competent as men. Stereotypically women are considered
to stay home, do domestic chores and take care of children instead of being in the working
industry. Hence, lower wage for women displays the discrimination towards females in the
Australian working society.

Figure 1: Wage Gap in Australia
Source : (APH, 2017)
Secondly, barriers to the leadership roles in organizations play a significant role in gender
discrimination in Australia. Only 15% of all the CEOs of the Australian companies are
women (Jayachandran 2015). Jericho (2017) concurs that one of the most significant area of
Australian gender inequality is the very low proportion of women in senior roles as women
depicts only 26% of all managers. According to the Australian Council of Superannuation
Investors, out of the highest 200 firms in Australia, only 40 firms have appointed 30%
females in the board (Women in Leadership: Understanding the gender gap 2017). This might
be attributed to the fact that stereotypically women are considered to be better at taking care
of the domestic responsibilities and not having sufficient leadership positions/skills.
Alternatively, men are seen to be the “superior” individuals, who are responsible for earning
money through differentiated occupational roles. Therefore, it might be an indication that the
Australian organizations are facing serious gender discrimination by failing to give
corresponding leadership position to females.
Thirdly, sexual harassment is one of the critical gender discrimination challenges in
Australian workplaces . Sexual harassment can be defined as unwanted and inappropriate
sexual conducts that makes a person feel intimidated or offended. Some of the public limited
companies and different departments are suffering from these types of challenges (Harzing
2014). According to the Australian Humans right commission over the last 5 years, one in
five women experienced sexual harassment in the form of sexually explicit emails and text
messages. Furthermore, under sex discrimination act from 2009-2010, 88% of the complaints were sexual

harassment in workplaces (Australian Humans right commission, year). This implies that the
growing use technology enhances sexual harassment by making it easier for the culprit to harass
anonymously without the fear of being exposed. It can also be to be connected to the fact that men
often see women as competitors in their male dominated society and harass them sexually
inorder to make feel uncomfortable. Another reason why sexual harassment is so prevalent in
the workplaces is because women often do not report the harassments to the authorities due to
the fear of reinforcing the humiliation. Thus, it may prove that harassment and violence
against women plays a significant role towards the absence of gender equality in Australia,
which leads to social issues and also monetary issues in the country.
Conclusively, gender discrimination has become an important challenge for the Australian
companies as well as the society. The huge gap in the working hours, barriers to leadership
roles in the organizations and sexual harassment should be regarded as major discrimination
challenges. These particular challenges need to be overcome by the policy makers as well as
community members collaboratively to maintain a strong social sustainability and ethical
balance in a discrimination-free society. Integration of equality should be important criteria
for the resolution.
Q2) How effective are the solutions for gender discrimination in Australia Versus the
Nordic countries?
The rapid growth of gender discrimination in this highly developed era of 21st century might
be instigating some countries for initiating changes in the national work ethics, educational
frameworks and policies for the rectification of the situation to the optimum level. Some
nations might have achieved success to some extent in achieving equality in every sections of
life which is more prevalent in the Nordic countries. It has been observed by Adapa,
Rindfleish & Sheridan that few countries in the world have been undergoing struggle for
incorporating these essential changes into the governance of their country. Australia is
considered to be one among those countries who have been struggling in implementing such
changes in an effective manner (Adapa, Rindfleish & Sheridan, 2016).
First and foremost, in order to minimize the gap of the gender pay scale of people in the
Nordic countries which does not happen in a country like Australia, are very efficient and
successful devising policies for achieving such targets and create a society with equality in
gender? According to Korpi, Ferrarini & Englund, it has been found that the wage rate of

Australia in comparison to the Nordic countries, women happen to receive 17.5 percent less
earnings on a weekly basis as compared to what their male colleague’s right from the year
2007 to 2014 (Korpi, Ferrarini & Englund, 2013). This gap had become quite non-existent.
In accordance to the statements of gender discrimination commissioners of Australia,
Elizabeth Broderick, numerous steps have been taken by the government of the country for
coping with such complication, however, a recently published report , Global Gender Gap,
reveals that the attempts taken by Australia for resolving these issues has proved of being not
much effective. Iceland and Finland, on the other hand, have been found to have maintained
their position in the race of global gender equality for providing the women of their
respective country with equal wages for equal work. Hence, McDonald said that it is very
appropriate for deriving a conclusion that much effective strategies and plans which are
devised and implemented by the government of Nordic countries have been proving to
create a benchmark of high effectiveness and efficiency in the setup of gender equality
which the government o Australia needs to achieve (McDonald, 2013).
Secondly, a major barrier to achieving equality of gender in Australia is recognized to be
under-presentation of women in the governmental bodies like parliament which is what the
Nordic countries have been successful in achieving. In accordance to the latest reports and
serious scrutiny of the situation, the parliament of Australia has initiated steps regarding
establishment of high watermark (both in the federal and state) along with 32 percent
representation. This has been recorded as an improvement from the prevalent situation of
women representatives which accounted for 20 percent in the Australian parliament in
1990’s. Though the solution of the issue of gender discrimination in Australia is on its way
for further development, it is still far away from hitting the well acclaimed status of
critical mass for having a significant effect similar to Sweden which is the country to have
the highest representation of women in their parliament. Further, through in-depth studies
conducted by Nikolova, Voelpela nd Pletzer in the year 2015, it has been observed that
diversity in gender and the representative team provides effective and successful
outcomes as compared to the limited representation in a parliament. This is very much
favorable for including women in the parliament of the country as they constitute around 50.2
percent of the population of Australia and are capable of addressing the national issues
related to their specific gender which ultimately will contribute to the betterment of Australia
(McDonald, 2016). Therefore, the under-representation of women in the parliament of the
country is ensure the equality in gender and restricting gender discrimination which is
considered as a much integrated part of the equality of gender in Nordic countries.

As a third note in the research, it is observed that equality at workplace ranks at the second
position after equality for child care and at home. Inspite of having greater participation of
women in the corporate business world in the Nordic countries, women are respectfully
entitled to have paternity leave which also includes the fathers leave, which not only serves
as an encouragement to the active role of the men as fathers in rearing of child but also
handles the stigma of categorizing the duty of mothers completely in a very dignified way.
It has also been observed that while Australia has laid its foundation regarding
implementation of a paternal leave in the year 2011 within eighteen weeks of application of
leave with the minimum wage, the country still confronts the biggest competition like
Sweden which has around 78 weeks of paid paternal leave at eighty percent of the
employees’ wages (McDonald, 2013). It is definitely an initiative taken in the direction of
achieving equality , however, with minimum wages, the women, mostly, are prone to the
indirect implications for finding alternatives and opt to stay at home instead of attending
workplace and working. Hence, the existing gaps in the rules, regulations and policies along
with the lack of adequate programs regarding child welfare at might contribute to more in the
orientation of under presentation of women in the business world.
On deriving conclusion form the research and analysis, the policies and efforts established
by the government of Australia along with the implications of such policies and efforts in
reality, it can be concluded that better, more clear and effective incentives are required for
making and bringing about changes in the educational, political along with the occupational
world which is integrated by the making and structuring of policy where the voice, opinions
and views of women is taken into serious consideration along with providing education to
men regarding the need of empowering women and their participation and role in the
society only when positive outcomes and significant changes in the society as well as in the
business environment can be witnessed (McDonald, 2016). Australia is observed to be
working diligently towards the eradication of gender discrimination. However, the current
solution regarding complete removal of gender discrimination has not made significant and
considerable development in the aspects of return on investments as it is in the Nordic
countries.
References
Adapa, S., Rindfleish, J. and Sheridan, A., 2016. ‘Doing gender’in a regional context:
Explaining women's absence from senior roles in regional accounting firms in Australia.
Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 35, pp.100-110.

Korpi, W., Ferrarini, T. and Englund, S., 2013. Women's opportunities under different family
policy constellations: Gender, class, and inequality tradeoffs in western countries re-
examined. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 20(1), pp.1-40.
McDonald, P., 2013. Societal foundations for explaining fertility: Gender equity.
Demographic research, 28, pp.981-994.
McDonald, W., 2016. Women in journalism: Margaret Jones, gender discrimination and the
Sydney Morning Herald, 1965–1985. Media International Australia, 161(1), pp.38-47.
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/chapter-4-nature-sexual-harassment-australian-
workplaces-sexual-harassment-serious