Women in Australia’s agriculture industry are earning on average almost $25,000 less each year than their male counterparts, and the gender pay gap in the industry is only widening.
Data from the Australian Government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency says the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry saw the biggest total salary widening for full-time workers between genders of all 19 major industries, from 2015-16 to 2016-17.
Agriculture’s pay gap has gone up from 21.8 per cent to 25.7pc, a $24,702 annual pay difference, becoming the industry with the fourth biggest total salary pay gap.
In terms of base salary, agriculture has become the industry with the second highest pay gap.
The gap has increased from 18.9pc to 21.6pc, with women earning on average $16,979 less than men each year.
While more agricultural employers have undertaken a pay gap analysis year-on-year (up by 12.8pc), the industry holds the fourth lowest position in number of employers addressing the issue.
A mere 29.8pc of employers in the agriculture sector have addressed the pay gap issue.
And the bleak salary gap figures can be reflected in the number of women in the agriculture industry.
In 2017, there were more than double the amount of men in full-time agriculture positions than there were women.
There were 10,288 men working in the industry full-time, as opposed to only 3908 women.
What is being done?
It is important to have the greatest diversity possible in agriculture and that means encouraging more women into the industry.
That’s according to Elders non-executive director, Robyn Clubb, who has been with the company since 2015, and in that time has seen a substantial improvement in the representation of women.
“When you think about rural Australia, there are a lot of farming families and businesses that have a strong female presence, so it’s important to replicate that in all parts of the industry,” Ms Clubb said.
“It’s a logical thing to be able to pick from the biggest talent pool possible, and that means drawing from the entire population, not just the male percentage.”
In what is a male-dominated industry, Ms Clubb said close to 40 per cent of the staff at Elders were women.
And this hasn’t been achieved through quotas, but through a deliberate cultural push.
And she said to ensure there’s a mental shift among people in the industry, Elders is leading from the top saying this was how we can do it.
“We wanted to build the talent base from the bottom up as well as the top down, to have a funnel of emerging women working in all parts of the company, who through personal development and training, can progress into other roles,” she said.
She said these inroads have been made through an increased variety of industry opportunities becoming available.
“You can see a greater number of ag opportunities becoming available for women, whether it’s in agronomy, research, livestock support, brokering, classing, or whatever else,” she said.
She said an example of a young woman coming through the ranks is Elders wool technical coordinator Sam Wan, who didn’t come from an agricultural background, but was now a future industry leader.
“She came from the western suburbs of Sydney, which is a little unusual, but with the opportunities arising, I think we’ll find this becoming more common,” she said.
And she said technology has helped this.
“Technology has enabled a lot of heavy lifting to be taken out of jobs, there are tools and smarter ways of doing things,” she said.
But she said there’s still room for improvement.
“I think we could all still do more – it’s about changing the mindset. Because we’re a relatively small industry, in comparison to some others, the turnover of people in senior positions is relatively low, but with greater transparency, this will become more diverse,” she said.
She said Elders was vigilant on ensuring people were remunerated for their skills, irrespective of gender.