Forty-eight days from fair: Equal Pay Day 2026
This year, Equal Pay Day fell on 17 August, marking the additional 48 days women in Australia must work, on average, to earn the amount men earned in the previous financial year.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) calculates the date using Australian Bureau of Statistics average weekly earnings data. Unlike equal pay for equal work, the gender pay gap measures the broader difference between women’s and men’s average earnings across the workforce.
The gap reflects structural inequalities including unequal caring responsibilities, gender segregation across occupations and industries, women’s under-representation in senior leadership, and barriers to career progression and workforce participation.
There has been incremental progress: Equal Pay Day fell on 19 August in 2025, representing a 50-day gap. This year’s 48-day gap is an improvement, but significant inequality remains.
Employers can help accelerate change by analysing pay gaps, reviewing recruitment, promotion and remuneration practices, increasing women’s representation in leadership, supporting flexible work and caring responsibilities, and measuring progress.
Closing the gender pay gap is critical to women’s economic equality, workforce participation and long-term financial security.
Harassment laws are having an effect
Since the Respect@Work changes took effect in 2023, sexual harassment complaints have increased both to the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Fair Work Commission.
The Human Rights Commission is holding six formal inquiries into employers’ conduct to examine whether they are complying with the positive duty to eliminate sexual harassment and is monitoring another 18.
The positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act’s section 47B requires employers to take ‘reasonable and proportionate measures’ to ‘eliminate’ sex discrimination, harassment and victimisation, ‘as far as possible’.
The Fair Work Commission has told Workplace Express that sexual harassment lodgements have ‘grown steadily’ over the three years since the passage of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Act reforms.
National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children enters new phase
The Australian Government is developing the Second Action Plan under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032.
Consultation on the plan ran from 22 May to 31 July and is intended to shape the next five years of national action.
Writing for The Conversation, Anastasia Powell, Professor of Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University, said Australia’s Personal Safety Survey, run by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, concluded that one in four women have experienced violence by an intimate partner or family member since the age of 15, compared with one in eight men.
Professor Powell says the National Plan includes actions across the whole spectrum of prevention, early intervention, crisis response and recovery.
Professor Powell’s advice:
Challenge myths and misinformation by refusing to blame victims or excuse perpetrators.
Respond appropriately to disclosures and connect people with specialist support services.
Model safety, respect and equality in our families, workplaces and communities.
Support systemic change by urging governments and communities to prevent violence, rather than placing responsibility on victims.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. If you’re in immediate danger, call 000. For support for men concerned about their own behaviour or experiences of violence, call Men’s Line on 1300 78 99 78.
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