abstract: 'Australia''s equal pay laws have recently been renovated through the

  Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and the Fair Work Act 2009. In light

  of these changes, it is timely to ask how effective Australia''s

  legislative approach is likely to be for progressing pay equity. This

  article presents an analysis of Australia''s current equal pay

  provisions, assessing their potential on the basis of their operation to

  date and through recent experience in Canada and the UK. Although

  focused on outcomes, we argue that Australia''s new workplace-based

  mechanism under the Workplace Gender Equality Act may prove relatively

  ineffective in both diagnosing and remedying pay inequality. In

  comparative perspective the Fair Work Act provisions provide significant

  capacity to improve pay equity across large sectors of the labour

  market. To date the use of these provisions point to some practical

  limitations in realising this potential. Moreover, the inadequate

  legislative and policy integration between labour market, sectoral,

  workplace and individual approaches together with a wavering political

  commitment to equality legislation generally suggest gender pay inequity

  will remain a persistent feature of Australian employment.'
affiliation: 'Charlesworth, S (Corresponding Author), Univ S Australia, Ctr Work Life,
  GPO Box 2471, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia.

  Charlesworth, Sara; Macdonald, Fiona, Univ S Australia, Ctr Work Life, Adelaide,
  SA 5001, Australia.'
author: Charlesworth, Sara and Macdonald, Fiona
author-email: Sara.Charlesworth@unisa.edu.au
author_list:
- family: Charlesworth
  given: Sara
- family: Macdonald
  given: Fiona
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1093/cje/beu044
eissn: 1464-3545
files: []
issn: 0309-166X
journal: CAMBRIDGE JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
keywords: Equal pay; Labour regulation; Workplace programmes; Australia
keywords-plus: EQUAL PAY; WOMEN; WORK
language: English
month: MAR
number: 2, SI
number-of-cited-references: '62'
orcid-numbers: 'Charlesworth, Sara/0000-0001-6975-9283

  Macdonald, Fiona/0000-0001-5139-5637'
pages: 421-440
papis_id: 0061242f540a9076f4a44a924b3f5383
ref: Charlesworth2015australiasgender
researcherid-numbers: 'Charlesworth, Sara/F-1098-2011

  '
times-cited: '10'
title: 'Australia''s gender pay equity legislation: how new, how different, what prospects?'
type: article
unique-id: WOS:000352201800007
usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
usage-count-since-2013: '14'
volume: '39'
web-of-science-categories: Economics
year: '2015'