00:00 Is there a gender pay gap?
00:02 Well, yes.
00:04 And no.
00:07 And it depends on who you ask.
00:09 - Over the course of her career,
00:11 a working woman with a college degree
00:13 will earn on average hundreds of thousands of dollars
00:17 less than a man who does the same work.
00:19 Now that's wrong.
00:21 - And in fact, if you look at this nonsense
00:23 about women are paid like 70 whatever cents for every man,
00:27 which obviously that's not true
00:29 because if that was true, I would only hire women
00:31 and pay them 77 cents a dollar.
00:33 I mean, if you could actually hire women cheaper than men,
00:36 I mean, why would I ever hire a man?
00:39 I would only hire women.
00:40 - I mean, women are not paid the same amount of money
00:43 as blokes in so many professions.
00:45 And I think we need to pay women more in sport,
00:50 in all sorts of different jobs.
00:52 - Regardless of whether the product is good.
00:54 - So you might as well say that brown eyed people
00:56 are more than blue eyed people and call it discrimination,
00:59 based on this data in the same way that we're saying gender
01:02 is being discriminated against.
01:04 Neither are legitimate
01:05 'cause you just haven't actually broken it down
01:07 to see what the real comparisons are.
01:09 - The gender pay gap is calculated
01:11 by taking all of women's wages, all of men's wages,
01:14 lining them up from highest to lowest
01:16 and then comparing the middle number or the median.
01:20 In Australia, the gender pay gap is at just 14%.
01:24 This means each week men are earning an average of $263.90
01:29 more than women.
01:31 It doesn't mean that women with the same expertise
01:34 and experience are being paid 14% less than men
01:37 with the same expertise and experience.
01:39 That would be gender discrimination
01:41 and it's very much illegal.
01:43 But it does mean that in order for women
01:45 to earn the same average salary as men in Australia,
01:48 women must work an additional 60 days
01:51 after the end of the financial year.
01:53 So how are women being paid less than men?
01:56 Well, there's a number of factors.
01:58 Women tend to dominate in lower paying professions,
02:01 including administration jobs, teaching and healthcare.
02:04 While men tend to be in trade and labor jobs
02:08 and other professions with higher wage ceilings.
02:11 A lot of the male dominated professions
02:13 do not have university degrees attached to them.
02:16 While a lot of the female dominated professions do.
02:20 Right now, for every 100 women enrolled
02:22 in university in Australia, there are just 72 men.
02:27 This means there's a difference
02:28 in how much debt is being accrued
02:31 and how quickly that can be paid down.
02:33 On average, it takes an Aussie university graduate
02:36 with a basic bachelor degree,
02:38 about a decade to completely pay off their student loans.
02:42 So on average, a lot more women are starting out
02:45 in the workforce with a higher education debt to pay back,
02:49 which will affect how much they are able to take home
02:51 in the first 10 years on the job.
02:54 When you start to look at managerial roles,
02:56 you start to see an even clearer picture
02:59 of the gender divide.
03:00 While women make up half the workforce overall,
03:04 women are underrepresented in CEO positions
03:07 and on company boards.
03:09 Frankly, the higher up you go, the fewer women you see.
03:12 But then, even when they're in the same industries,
03:16 women tend to stay in junior positions
03:19 while men are elevated to senior roles faster.
03:22 The divide widens with age
03:24 and especially after having children.
03:27 The pay gap between workers aged 18 to 39
03:30 around the world is near zero,
03:32 but things start to change around the age of 40.
03:36 In 2017, it was calculated that 56% of women
03:40 scaled back their work hours
03:41 or switched to a less demanding job
03:43 after the birth of their first child.
03:46 That was compared to 19% of first-time fathers
03:49 who did the same.
03:50 But even if the impact on a man's career
03:53 after he becomes a father might be smaller,
03:56 it doesn't mean he doesn't pay a price.
03:59 Men often have to sacrifice time with their families
04:02 in order to keep progressing in their career.
04:05 - Many men say, "Well, I have work and I support my family,
04:08 "but I see my family very little.
04:10 "I would like to be much more involved
04:13 "in my family's lives."
04:15 - So how do we fix the parental issue for both sides?
04:18 Well, one solution would be to introduce
04:21 more workplace rights for men.
04:24 Now, before you revoke my feminist card
04:27 and cancel me on Twitter,
04:28 hear me out because this could work.
04:31 Some companies around the world
04:32 have introduced a dedicated properly paid leave period
04:36 just for fathers that equals the time and pay
04:39 offered to women on maternity leave.
04:42 When men are allowed to take extended parental leave,
04:45 without sacrificing their pay packet,
04:48 it breaks the perception that women
04:49 might be more of a risk to a company
04:51 because they are more likely to take extended time off.
04:55 So if the entire workforce, regardless of gender,
04:58 has the same access to adequate family leave entitlements,
05:02 it creates a more supportive environment,
05:04 both at work and at home.
05:06 (gentle music)
05:09 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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