She's On The Money - BONUS EP: Happy Equal Pay Day!

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

Happpyyyy Equal Pay Day to all of our community! We've taken this date in the calendar to talk about one of our fave things: equality! You'll love this little morsel of goodness from G + V today, and if you'd like to do any reading for yourself, we used all of the incredible resources made available by our friends at WGEA: Which you can find at https://www.wgea.gov.au/terms/equal-pay-day.The advice shared on She’s on The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She’s on The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Australia Pacific Funds Management Proprietary Limited ABN 34 132 463 257 - AFSL 339151.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of She's on the money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. Today is Equal Pay Day, a day to bring attention to the financial inequality that still exists between men and women in the workplace in Australia. Why is it today? Well, the 31st of August marks the extra 61 days from the end of the financial year that women, on average, need to work to earn the same pay as men. My name is Georgia King and joining me to discuss

equal payday today including how far we've come and how far we still have to go in closing the gender pay gap is of course financial advisor victoria divine v happy equal payday doll oh happy equal payday to you too my queen exciting day oh what a time to be alive and be reminded that for the same work we get paid less what a dream well that's it it's it's a day i hadn't heard of it before. Have you heard of equal payday before? Yes, I have, sir. Well, that makes sense because you're a financial advisor and I'm merely a gal. And I'm also often on my high horse about being paid equally and equality and rights and all of that. So I'm not surprised that you hadn't heard of it, but that's why we're doing this episode because I think everyone should hear

about it. 100%. So let's start from the start. Where did equal payday come from? What's the point of it. Talk us through all of this stuff, Bea. So Equal Pay Day or Unequal Pay Day, as it is known, is a day for all of us to take a pause and talk about the gender pay gap, which still exists and remind us all that we have a long way to go in achieving financial equality between genders in the workplace, which is really, really sad. Like, I just am so upset that we're still having this conversation. Like, yes, we've come so far, but we are still so far away from being equal to that of men in the workplace. So as you said, G, the date is actually decided by how many extra days women have to work to match earnings of men. And this year it falls on the 31st of August

to mark 61 extra days that we have to work each and every single year to earn exactly the same amount of money. So if you want to know the nitty gritty of exactly how they calculate it, because I always do, to quote the WGEA website, they derive the difference between women's and men's average full-time earnings as a percentage of women's earnings and multiply that figure by 365 days. So, it's their weekly earnings, right? Yes, it is their weekly earnings. And it's an initiative from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, who we respect very, very highly. And they are a government organization that was set up in 1986, and it was designed to help progress gender inequality, equality opportunities, and pay equality in the workplace. I think upfront

something that I really want to talk about here is we are talking men versus women. And when we were researching the episode to give you guys all the juicy, sexy statistics, the thing that we were most disappointed about was the lack of research, the lack of study, the lack of information that existed around minority groups. So yes, we're talking about women being worse off, but I guarantee you the statistics would be far worse for people of color, for people who are trans, For anybody in the LGBTQI plus community, they are definitely going to be even worse off than women. And it is a shame that on a day like today, we don't have significant statistics to share with you around that level of inequality, because it is wild to think how far they are behind in

comparison to even women. So, I just want to put that up front. It's not because we're trying to avoid that topic. It's because the research does not exist. Like, we haven't done enough. Like, we even see it on surveys like Georgia do you remember doing the census it wasn't that long ago literally I put feedback in my census because the only gender options were male and female like really yes they didn't even in the census have any information for people to say I don't want to disclose or you know I'm not either of those options or I'm something else and to me in 2021 it was like that's a really big fail on behalf of the government doing a nationwide survey to not see that as an epic opportunity to one make people feel included but two to actually

collect that information because it is relevant to us it is something we need to care about and by not putting that option there they're saying they don't care yeah 100 i also uh emailed the WGEA people to ask what they are doing in terms of research. I haven't heard back yet, but when I do hear, I'll let you guys know because I assume they are working in that area. Yeah, I absolutely think they are. Yeah, I absolutely think they are. It's just really sad that not enough information exists around that because also we have a lot of people from those communities in our community and it just makes sense that we talk to those people as well and not just go, hey, this is women only. So every stat you hear, everything that we talk

about in this podcast, I want you to know, yeah, that's awful, but it's worse for those minority groups. And as soon as we have all of that information and all the research, you best believe we'll be doing an entire episode on it. 100%. Okay, V, so where are we at in Australia when it comes to this issue? Oh, look, unfortunately we have taken a step backwards over the last six months, which let's blame it on COVID. It's not just the fact that, you know, women are not being as valued. I think that's a really, I mean, in comparison to some of the other reasons, I think that's a pretty good reason to have taken a step back. But the gender pay gap is currently 14.2%, which is a rise of 0.8% over the last six months. So, that's pretty significant.

It was 13.4, I think, when we last spoke about this issue. yes it was so that's obviously disappointing but from my perspective not the be all end all like it's definitely something we can recover from on average though while men working full-time earned eighteen hundred and thirty seven dollars per week women earned fifteen hundred and seventy five dollars fifty which is a total weekly georgia difference of 261.50 or 13 grand a year so jay people might not think that that's that much because obviously when it comes to the gender pay gap, there are so many different factors and you go, okay, well, women take time off and they do lots of unpaid labor and all of that. But at the end of the day, how many of your mates,

are paying 250 bucks a week rent? That is literally rent. 13 grand a year is so much money. Like if you were investing that amount, that's literally like over a thousand dollars a month that you could invest or save that men can do that we cannot. And I just feel like that is so much money. And we really need to take this seriously, not just go, yeah, the pay gap exists. What does that mean? That means that if somebody is earning $261.50 more than a female each and every single week, they would have more than $1.2 million more in retirement had they invested that amount. Jeez. Gee, what? That puts it into perspective. That is so much money. And $1.2 million in retirement gives you about a $60,000 income stream each and every single year. So,

that is wild if you extrapolate that out and be a little bit dramatic. But like, if I'm anything, I am dramatic on this podcast. So, WGEA data also shows that in Australia, women's average full-time wages are lower than men's across every industry and occupation. So not just some, every single one. Surprisingly, organizations which have big female presences like education and training, healthcare and social assistance sectors were revealed to be the lowest on average when it comes to their quote, approach to gender pay equality in the workplace. Plus they've shown the least improvement over the last five years. This is in contrast to industries like mining, finance and insurance who rank much higher thankfully that is so surprising though isn't it

i know you would have thought it would be leading the way yeah i feel like because there actually aren't as many women in mining the gap isn't as big and oh i don't want to be that guy but like if you look at all of the data about the types of jobs women want to do like on a base level women are more maternal i'm not saying that this is acceptable women are more maternal we're more quote, caring. I'm not saying that that is true of everybody, but like we're talking about the topic and women are more likely to choose things like nursing and teaching and caring, social assistance roles, which I think is really great. But because of that, we aren't valued as much because like that's a woman's job. And like, that's not the case. I definitely don't believe

that. But over COVID, we've learned very quickly, which we all should have known already that people in education, people in healthcare, people in social assistance are the most important people in our community, yet they're the ones being paid the least. What? Yeah. It's a very backward system, isn't it? It makes no sense. It is wild. And last week, Jay, you and I spoke on our retirement episode that this stuff really matters long-term. And I obviously just gave you an example of what that means if you had invested it all the way to retirement, but it doesn't just impact the amount of money that you get in your back pocket each and every single week. It also impacts our super because obviously if you're earning less, you are having less

super contributed. And we need to talk about this and understand how it's not just $261 a week. It adds up so much over a working lifetime. Even all of that aside, V, like if I had an extra $261 a week, like the things I would do with it, you know, like that is a substantial sum. It would cover my rent. It would cover my groceries. like that's a it's a big comfort that we don't live with i guess yeah and i mean it's on average

and lots of people yeah oh my gosh be like it's not that's not exactly what it means but let's be honest at the end of the day that's an average g so for some women that's 500 a week yes for some it might only be 30 cents but that is massive on average to have and the fact that the average is only, 261, means there's a lot of people on either side of that number. And that is what's concerning. Yeah, definitely. Before we go any further, let's talk about what the gender pay gap actually measures and the difference between that and what pay equality is, because I had to wrap my head around it. So yeah, let's make it really clear. And I'm obviously wild about pay equality. Like pay equality to me is a no brainer. So pay equality refers to the pay for

work of equal or comparable value. So equal pay is not just about equal wages. Equal pay takes into account all of the other things. So like discretionary pay, your allowances, performance payments, merit payments, all of that fun stuff, including superannuation. And unequal pay is one of the key drivers of the gender pay gap. Equal pay is when men and women receive equal pay for the work of equal or comparable value. So, it's not the pay gap. The pay gap is actually made up of a lot of different things, but the gender pay gap measures the difference between the average earnings of men and women in the workforce, not for like-for-like jobs. It's not the difference between two workers being paid differently for the same job because that's actually illegal.

And if that's happening to you, my friend, you need to whistleblow on that ASAP. So, basically, the gender pay gap refers to the difference on average between what women and men get paid across different industries and organizations in the workforce overall does that make sense yeah so it's kind of the larger scope of the thing it's like yeah it's the bigger picture it's made up of so many different things so it's not just being paid equally it's also like parental leave and things like that that all add up and actually put us as women behind yeah and And that leads me perfectly to my next question, which is why is there this gap? Let's talk about it. What are the factors contributing to it? There's so many contributing factors,

which is really frustrating, but it all comes down to the lack of value for women in the workplace. Sad, but true. As well as the many barriers that lead to a lack of women in senior high-paying roles. It's not necessarily something deliberate. Let's just put that out there. It's quite ingrained in many workplace cultures, which sees things like conscious and unconscious biases in decisions around who to hire and what to pay employees. There are a whole heap of other reasons as well, G, for the gap, including women working part-time, time out of the workforce to care for and raise families, which not only means they're not earning money or super, but they're losing the opportunity to continue building their careers in those years. So like when you finally go back

to the workforce, how many times have we heard stories of women going, oh, well, I worked in marketing and, you know, I've been trying to get back into the workforce, but because I've been out for five years, they think that I'm redundant because, you know, I'm not up with what TikTok is doing and what the world is doing. And I know that those are generalized examples, but you can see why they end up adding up in that way. I'm not saying it's acceptable by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an example of how that works. Gee, we know women also take on a large load on average when it comes to things like unpaid work and domestic work around the house. and I have no doubt when our census comes back from this year it is going to say exactly the

same thing as it always has and that is women do more work around the household than men do and a lack of workplace flexibility exists with hours that mean they may not be able to take on larger workplace roles like senior roles because they need flexibility like they actually have family commitments that they want to meet which is so fair and female dominated industries like healthcare and teaching, they attract lower wages, which is confusing given how important they are. And we ranted about it before because they are literally keeping us alive and educated. Oh, V, this topic has me. I'm angry all the time. Yeah. Well, rightly so. It's a very frustrating topic, but you know, we will be talking about what the future looks like on

the other side of the break. And hopefully that will leave us feeling with a little bit more hope in our hearts. A little bit more empowered. Yes, we'll be back. So stick around friends. v we touched on it in the first half of the show a little bit there talking about how minority groups are so much worse off in this whole debacle we we didn't find many stats because there aren't many that have been created yet but we did find some stuff so can you talk us through that we know that there are frustratingly very few statistics that sit around this and you know what it makes me really interested in potentially doing our own study to find these stats so we can start putting things on the table and say no this is serious as well we need to take this into

consideration but there are a few factors that are to it and a lot of the stats that we've got now actually come from the US so we're going to go with them because there's not a lot coming out of Australia but the few factors are things like systemic racism and biases that say white people promoted and employed at higher rates than people of color which is heartbreaking and there's a quote that i will read out because it is from a research paper and i thought it was really interesting it is from the u.s and it says interactions between individual characteristics can have significant impact on gender pay gaps for example research from the united states looks at women's earnings as a percentage of a white man's earnings and finds that in 2018

the gender pay gap for all women compared to white men was 19.9% but rose to 34.7% for black women and 38.4% for hispanic women the gap can be exasperated even further in different parts of the united states which gee oh awful like i would hate to think what those stats are for other people of the LGBTQI plus community. And for example, black women in Louisiana, which we know is definitely not nearly as progressive as other parts of the USA, are paid just 49 cents for every dollar paid to a white man. More work needs to be done, obviously, on how intersectionality impacts gender pay gaps in Australia. But I think it's one of those things that I think we would be horrified to find out what the statistics are here in Australia. And I'm not saying that's why the

research hasn't been done. I think it's just not been done yet, but I can't wait for it to exist so we can start closing those gaps and actually start making it not an issue. What does the future look like at the moment, V? Because this is all quite doom and gloomy, but obviously we've come a long way in the last 50 years. So what do the next 50 years look like? So according to research done by our friends at the WGEA and the Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre, it's expected that it's going to take another 26 years for the full-time total remuneration gender pay gap to close completely, which that's a long time, Jay. That's like an entire human. How old will we be by then? Oh, I'll be in my 50s. You'll be in your 50s. I'll be ready to retire. You'll be planning for

retirement or I hope you'll be ready for retirement because you'll be investing that $261.50 per week, absolutely right fantastic you'll be ahead of the game i love it but 26 years old jay you are like what 27 years old yeah like that's an entire lifetime that is that's wild that is absolutely wild but at the same time that's not too bad we can do that and i think that there are definitely a few things that we could do to turbocharge that and make it happen sooner but positively the research actually found the gap could close over the next 10 years for executives which i think is really exciting because obviously leadership roles are a really big topic when it comes to gender and pay and equality and i read a fact the other day what fact of all oh my gosh

i'm so excited about this of all of the asx listed top 200 companies not one of them has an all board anymore oh that's huge how cool is that well done well done asx top 200 there you go love your work keep it up so when you say executives that means like CEOs and COOs CFOs like executive roles that are pretty fancy pants okay so I'm happy for them but I guess that's not many of us is it no it's a minority but like let's just take the small wins and celebrate everything that we can and so how are you feeling about this fee as a business chick girl boss are you feeling optimistic about the future sorry for saying girl boss that was really lame. I don't like the term girl boss. Actually, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Full disclosure

for everyone listening. Victoria Devine was wearing a shirt last time we recorded that said hashtag girl boss on it. Lady boss. Oh, lady boss. It was lady boss. That's slightly better. Someone gifted it to me and I thought it was satirical. Like I thought it was funny. Like I don't like being called a girl boss because like from my perspective, I'm just a boss. It's a bit patronizing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. My gender actually has nothing to do with how I'm running my business and I would like to be known as a good human and a good person not just a female running a business like I don't want to be token like and I mean coming from someone who has a business called she's on the money I think some people are going to be like they like do you

realize what you're doing and I'll be like well yes but like the she and she's on the money is meant to be me and our community is so diverse and calling me a girl boss like what's the point of that like I just want to be a total boss like compare me to the men like do you know what I mean Totally. I don't want to be just the best woman in business. I want to be the best person in business. You know, I apologize for calling you shoot for the stars. So back to where we began there. Are you optimistic about the future boss person? Very. I mean, 50 years ago, a female running a finance company would have been unheard of. It would have been completely unfathomable. Like it is one of those things that I can see the progression in my own industry happening in leaps and bounds and seeing all of the beautiful females that are coming into our industry is so special because even like six years ago when I was going to conferences and, you know, meeting people in the industry, I would very often be the only female in the room and I would feel really uncomfortable.

and that is starting to become not a thing and it's really exciting and it's really empowering and i love that more women are taking up bigger roles in different roles and starting to saturate industries that were predominantly male historically but i i do think we still have a long way to go and um yeah my linkedin dms are a very big factor in why i think we still have a very long way to go wait what do you mean what do you mean by that oh the amount of men and their audacity in my linkedin dms like it is one of the reasons i don't love linkedin as in being little pervs yeah just being little pests yeah really oh absolutely that's that's uh inappropriate that is kind of gross get in the bin i'll start calling you out publicly good i'll screenshot

that and send it to your wife bloody oath didn't you do that last year not send to the wife but you you didn't know i posted it on linkedin that was good yeah i just i do like calling people out and you've probably seen it on my instagram very recently me getting on my high horse about vaccinations and public health and i just think that these things are really important to talk about because we aren't just talking about you know ourselves we aren't just saying this is going to be better for victoria like we are saying this is going to be better for our community and i'm just i'm at a point where i'm really sick of hearing the division between new south wales and Queensland and what's happening over in Perth and what's happening in Victoria because at the

end of the day like Australia is a community like we're all in this together and like I got vaccinated yesterday which is so exciting and I feel so grateful but it's also one of those things that I'm really grateful but not just because I'm protected because I'm looking after people who can't get vaccinated and minority groups and our communities that are not actually able to access those things and have them. And, you know, it's, it's cool to do something for the greater good and be a part of a community. And especially in Australia, where we are so lucky to have Medicare and a public health system and a government that genuinely cares about our wellbeing. Like so, so lucky, G. 100%. All right. Let's get back to gender pay gaps.

Let's get back to it. To finish off today's show, let's talk about what we can be doing to make change happen when it comes to the gender pay gap happen faster. Yes. So first things first, I want you to have more money conversations. Keep on keeping on. She's on the money community. You are doing epic things. And I just feel like this is only the beginning for what we can do in this money space. Talk about our salaries. Tell your friends what you earn. If you're going to go for a pay increase, talk to people in the industry about what they're earning. I don't think that there is any shame in talking about this. Obviously, if you don't want to, don't do that. But I think being more open just gives us more leverage. Know your worth,

like know what your role is worth. Know if you're being underpaid. So many times I speak to people and I'll say, hey, like, are you being paid? What is average? Are you being overpaid? And they're like, oh, I don't know. I've never looked into it. Go find a salary guide. Go find what your average industry pay is and make sure that's the base expectation that you are aiming for From an organizational point of view, Libby Lyon, who is the director of WGEA, she says research proves that regular audits close pay gaps faster. The 2021 Gender Equality Insights Report from BCEC and WGEA showed that employees who consistently did pay audits between 2015 and 2020 closed their managerial pay gaps faster than all other companies. by contrast those who stopped doing pay audits actually saw their managerial pay gaps increase so that is pretty powerful and if you personally want to support equal payday follow along with

their 2021 theme which is what's your pay gap as a hashtag which is quite cute and ask how your workplace measures and acts to address its gender pay gap which i think that's just a given ask hr see what they're doing are they actually running something today to talk about hashtag what's your pay gap or are they just not addressing it? I think it is really, really important and we can obviously share that on socials, which I think we should all do as well. I know I will be. And you can find out more about Equal Pay Day and Equal Pay and literally everything to do with gender equality by heading to the WGEA website, which is where we sourced a lot of our stats for today's show. So thank you. Big shout out to them for making this really easy for us to research,

which is very kind but we genuinely love it because it is a super valuable website so we'll be sure to link that in our show notes as well jay 100 all right vd i think that is all we have time for today but thank you so much for the many words of wisdom i feel like i learned a lot today it's good to kind of see how far we've come and how far we still have to go and hopefully everyone listening today has learned something as well yeah i think we all did and i think it's just something we should talk about more often and yeah keep talking about it but as always that is all we have time for today so just before we head off we'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to australia's aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples they're the traditional custodians

of the lands the waterways and the skies all across australia we thank you for sharing and for caring for the land on which we are able to learn we pay our respects to elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness and remember guys the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances She's on the money, exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or a financial decision. And we promise Victoria Devine is an authorised representative

of Australia Pacific Funds Management, Proprietary Limited, ABN... Oh, gosh, my screen's fuzzy and I couldn't see the numbers and I don't remember them! I'll do it! ABN 34132463257AFSL339151, my friends. um oh don't say i don't do anything for you but let's continue this conversation about equal pay day over in our facebook group where our community is going i'm assuming rife over this topic we chat

money topics money conversations and share tips and tricks every single day of the week free of judgment just search she's on the money on facebook and join us we will see you there guys tomorrow as well guys back in your ears on wednesday yes check us out we are saturating the pod servers this week. Sorry. Bye. Bye, guys.