The Workplace Gender Equality Agency data was released last week, and we thought it would be interesting to see how the development sector organisations stacked up.
Reporting was limited to those with over 100 employees, which rules out most of the sector! But there were a few that made the cut and reported.
Overall, Development sector orgs did better than the average, with an average pay gap of 13.9%. But, given that women make up 64.4% of the organisations, and 50.1% of the top quartile of earners in each org, that gap is still pretty large.
World Vision reported the lowest pay gap in the cohort, with a number of NGO’s around the 10% mark.
What do you think of the data? and will it lead to change?
Which orgs did we miss that we should add?
Notes:
- Data taken from WGEA data website on the 27th of Feb, 2024. You can access the data here: https://www.wgea.gov.au/data-statistics/data-explorer
- Tetra Tech International Development is combined with Tetra Tech, which may skew the development specific data.
- DT Global and Abt Global Australia, while the major contractors to DFAT, did not have their data published.
- In communications with InDev, Abt advised that they had “submitted our data to WGEA as directed and are awaiting a resolution to the delay in our profile’s and inclusion“.
- DT Global has not responded by the time of publication.
- It is worth noting that a range of reasons can be explain the data not being reported, and neither org is on the non-compliance list with WGEA. However, WGEA reporting is a component of the requirements for tender submissions for Australian Government tenders, including DFAT.
Overall, Development organisations were ahead on many of the core metrics.
But, there were some outliers. Compassion and Tetra Tech both had higher than the average pay gaps. For Tetra Tech, reporting was as a whole, so the devleopment divison was reported with the enginerring aspect of the organisation.
Unsurprisingly, The development sector is majortiy women in all orgs (except Tetra Tech), with Save the Children reporting more than 80% of the organisation is female.
But, when we look at jsu tthe top quartile of earners in the organsiatons, the demographic changes. While Save still leads the pack, out of the 7 organisations that had majority women, only 3 how more than 50% women in the top quartile (and 2 more at exactly 50%).
And when we look at the overall pay gap, we cna see that all still have a long way to go. World Vision has the lowest pay gap, at 7.6% (the target from WGEA is 5%). Compassion and Tetra Tech have the highest.
So, what does all this mean? It will be interesting to see how this impacts the sector, given majority are ahead of the Australian average. For many, efforts that are already existing will continue to try and further reduce the pay gap.
Our main questions, we are keen to hear Compassions response, being the outlier. And DT Global’s response as their data wasn’t posted. We will let you know!