Finance gender pay gap highest
Women in the finance industry are paid $627 per week less than men and intervention is needed to support low paid workers, the Finance Sector Union of Australia (FSU) believes.
The FSU's submission to the economic inquiry for women's retirement security highlighted the fact that 51 per cent of the industry was made up of women, and the industry had the highest gender pay gap of 30.5 per cent.
This $627 disparity in pay meant the gap reached $1.47 million over the span of a 45-year career, the FSU said.
"It is no wonder then, despite decades of compulsory superannuation contributions, women are retiring with less than half the amount as men, with 90 per cent of Australian women having inadequate savings in retirement," the submission said.
"The current superannuation system was designed for full-time, uninterrupted work, which ignores the unpaid work that is mostly done by women who work part-time of take unpaid breaks from the workforce."
The submission noted that women are more likely to make decisions about their work based on their capacity to balance work and family obligations, with women more likely to accept lower paid work for this reason.
To support low paid workers, the union recommended to:
- increase the super guarantee (SG) to 12 per cent;
- remove the $450 threshold for SG payments;
- retain the low income super contribution;
- ensure that unlawful industrial practises are properly investigated by the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Australian Taxation Office; and
- provide adequate funding to ensure universal access to quality, affordable child care.
In terms of boosting retirement savings during parental leave, the submission recommended:
- the continuation of government-funded paid parental leave;
- pay super contributions on the Government's paid parental leave scheme;
- incentivise employers to make additional super contributions to women; and
- to amend taxation legislation to ensure employer super payments on paid and unpaid parental leave are treated in the same way as mandatory employer contributions and not as additional discretionary payments.
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