In short:
An Indigenous-led report has found First Nations workers earn 16 per cent less per hour than all Australian workers on average.
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workers → lead → workers
After examining factors including age, experience, qualifications and hours worked, the pay gap remained largely unexplained, with the authors pointing to structural racism.
What next:
The report recommends the Racial Discrimination Act be amended to place a positive duty on employers to prevent racial discrimination, in the same way they must prevent sex discrimination.
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they → examine → discrimination
A landmark report into the First Nations pay gap has revealed Indigenous workers are on average paid 16 per cent less per hour than the average Australian worker.
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workers → reveal → worker
The report by the University of Technology Sydney's Centre for Indigenous People and Work (CIPW) and Indigenous Business Australia (IBA) found Indigenous workers earned 84 cents to every dollar earned by Australian workers on average.
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workers → find → workers
CIPW director Professor Nareen Young said the size of the pay shortfall was equivalent to losing a lifetime of superannuation payments or working nearly two months every year for free.
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size → say → months
"Nobody would accept that in a contract and no one should have to accept this gap," she said.
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she → accept → gap
Australia's gender pay gap is smaller, with women on average earning 11.2 per cent less than men.
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women → earn → men
"Obviously we still have a problem but [the gender pay gap] is getting much better because of policy interventions," she said.
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she → have → interventions
"But this research shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are on average getting paid a lot less for doing the same jobs.
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people → show → jobs
"
Indigenous women had the greatest pay disparity, earning an average of $41 an hour compared to $52 for all Australian men.
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women → have → men
Pay disparities across range of professions
The report found that across all eight major occupation groups, from managers to labourers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers earned on average less per hour.
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workers → find → hour
The largest hourly pay gap was recorded amongst professionals at 19.5 per cent.
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gap → record → cent
IBA chief economist Dr Siddharth Shirodkar said it showed higher-paid or highly skilled occupations were not immune from pay inequality.
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occupations → say → inequality
"If you've got a post-grad qualification … and you're First Nations, you've got a higher employment rate than non-Indigenous people, but the average annual income for Indigenous people with those qualifications is generally lower."
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income → get → qualifications
Dr Shirodkar said the pay gap existed across almost every age category as well.
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gap → say → category
"That points to systemic issues, structural issues and indeed bias and discrimination," he said.
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he → point → issues
The report analysed data from 227 occupations and found in three quarters of occupational groups, Indigenous workers earned less per hour than all workers in the same role.
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workers → analyse → role
The size of that gap varied, from 34 per cent for environmental scientists to 6 per cent for truck drivers.
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size → vary → drivers
"The dominant pattern is persistent underpayment, not isolated anomalies," the report said.
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report → isolate → ?
Teachers and machinery operators/drivers stood out as exceptions, earning close to pay parity on hourly wages or even slightly reversed hourly pay gaps.
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Teachers → stand → wages
Dr Shirodkar estimated the pay gap would amount to $170 billion in lost income by 2050, which would have broader impacts on the Australian economy.
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which → estimate → economy
"That's not taking into consideration the compounding effect of lower superannuation, lower savings, lower rates of wealth creation as well," he said.
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he → take → creation
Pay gap attributed to structural racism
The study examined the factors typically given as reasons for pay gaps — such as hours worked, occupation, age and education — and found these could not fully explain the pay gap.
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these → attribute → gap
The study found differences in the numbers of hours worked by Indigenous people could only explain about 2 per cent of the gap.
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differences → find → gap
And while Indigenous workers were somewhat more likely to work in lower-paying occupations, the authors said this could only explain 27.5 per cent of the total gap.
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this → work → gap
Professor Young said that left 70 per cent of the Indigenous pay gap "unexplained".
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that → say → gap
"We've been told for years that this is about education, about experience, about the sorts of jobs our mob end up in, and we've tested every one of those explanations," she said.
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she → tell → explanations
"So what is left is structural racism in the way work is valued and paid.
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work → leave → way
"What we need to have as an Australian community is a big discussion about the value of Indigenous work."
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need → need → work
The report said the gap likely reflected factors such as the legacy of historically discriminatory wage setting, racial bias in recruitment, and limited power for First Nations workers to negotiate salaries and pay increases.
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workers → say → salaries
These factors were not directly measured in the report but were identified as potential contributors.
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factors → measure → contributors
While the report measured pay gaps using average hourly earnings, the authors found strong correlations when examining median pay gaps across occupations as well.
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authors → measure → occupations
The authors said this meant their findings were unlikely to be skewed by a small number of unusually high or low-income earners but reflected broader differences across occupations.
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findings → say → occupations
They said their estimates of hourly earnings were economy-wide figures and should not be interpreted as "like-for-like comparisons of otherwise identical workers".
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estimates → say → workers
Employers urged to prevent racial discrimination
The report made several key recommendations aimed at creating fairer pay and employment structures.
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report → urge → structures
The most significant was to place a positive duty on employers to prevent racial discrimination, in the same way they must prevent sex discrimination.
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they → place → discrimination
Other recommendations included improving Indigenous employment data collection, and for cultural skills to be valued properly when wages are set.
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wages → include → collection
The Aporia