Which healthcare companies are paying women less?

Across the sector women were paid $13,400 less on average than men in 2022-23. A new report names names.

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Some big names in the healthcare sector are now demonstrably guilty of significant gender pay gaps, with the release of new data from the government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency. 

Women working across the sector were paid on average $13,400 less than their male colleagues in 2022-23, according to the numbers.  

Data from 5000 private sector employers revealed the median total renumeration gender pay gap for healthcare and social assistance companies was 6% in 2022-23, up slightly from 5% in 2021-22. 

Among individual employers, Healthdirect Australia reported a 24% gender pay gap in 2022-23, while Telstra Health and Genesis Care both recorded a 26% gap in men’s and women’s median salaries.   

Among private hospitals, Mercy Hospitals in Victoria reported a 13% pay gap and South Perth Hospital a 16% pay gap in 2022-23. St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne recorded an 11% gender pay gap in the same period, compared to the 6% pay gap reported at its hospital in Sydney. 

This was despite the hospital sector overall reporting a pay gap that favoured women, with median total renumeration for women 3.5% and base salaries 7% higher than for men working in the sector in 2022-23.   

Fifty-six percent of employers working in the private hospital sector reported having a policy for equal pay renumeration. However, only 28% said they’d undertaken a payroll analysis to address pay inequity, with just over half of those indicating they’d taken action as a result of the analysis. 

Within primary care, Murray PHN reported a 23% gender pay gap, much higher than that of Healthy North Coast at 6% in 2022-23, while Maari Ma Health Aboriginal Corporation had a 25% gap in gender gap equity.   

The Australian College of Emergency Medicine reported a 25% gender pay gap and the Queensland branch of the Royal Flying Doctor Service had a 23% gender pay gap in 2022-23.  

The national gender pay gap was 19% for 2022-23, with women’s median salaries more than $18,000 lower than men’s median salaries over the course of the year.