Equal Pay in Australia: recent trends and evidence

By Anna Chapman

Achieving the goal of pay equity in Australia has proven to be elusive.

Although in theory women won equal pay through test cases in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the empirical evidence continues to indicate that women still don't enjoy parity in practice.

Chapman examines some causes, looks at sex discrimination and the equal pay cases, gender bias and valuation of skills and examines the most recent in-depth inquiry, the NSW Pay Equity case (1999). She also looks at the impact of enterprise bargaining and the legislative framework and how it works for and against equity in practice.

(LexisNexis Butterworths Employment Law Bulletin. vol. 9, no. 10)