As part of our special International Women's Day coverage, Imogen Bailey explores the figures on women in fashion in Australia.
In 2019, I wrote a piece exploring the government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA) data on women in fashion.
And unfortunately, not much has changed.
The most recent WGEA’s data from November 2020 on the clothing retailing industry – which has 66,543 employees within 37 organisations – shows that while women make up 84.1% of the workforce, only 20% are CEOs.
The data indicates that women make up almost half (44.5%) of key management personnel, while just under a third (29.9%) are directors.
Meanwhile, the full-time gender pay gap in the sector has decreased slightly to 27%, compared to 30.2% in 2018, however still sits well above the national gender pay gap of 14.2%.
WGEA executive manager communications and engagement (acting) Murray Black says that workforce segregation in clothing retailing is a driving factor behind the figures.
“More than three quarters of the whole workforce is female, and yet, there's a large number of women in a predominantly front facing customer service roles and lower levels of management.
“Then it's the men dominating the upper levels of management, which is a trend that you see across a lot of industries,” he says.
Black adds that the idea of “men’s and women’s work” also perpetuates the workforce segregation in the industry.
“One of the things we do notice across our data set is that gender segregation is a really hard one to shift.
“There are longer term cultural factors at play here; the whole idea of stereotyping and the type of work that's seen as men's work and women's work.
“Occupational segregation issues are very tough and take a long, long time to shift,” he says.
Additionally, good old-fashioned bias and discrimination continues to play a part.
“The ‘She's Price(d)less’ report that we did with KPMG showed that 39% of the cause behind the pay gap is bias and discrimination,” Black says.
However, there is work being done in the sector to address these attitudes, which also helps to shift the dial on pay equity too.
Albeit at a slower pace than the national average, the sector has strategies in place around pay, with the WGEA’s data showing that 48.6% of employers have a formal policy or strategy on remuneration generally, compared to the national average of 63.8%.
However, the data shows that specific action on the gender pay gap is happening at a much slower pace than average, with only 16.7% of clothing retail employers having specific gender pay equity objectives included in their formal policy or strategy, compared to 43.1% nationally.
And while the sector likes to conduct a pay audit (40.5% of employers have done this – national average is 46.4%), the action following seems to be lacking, with only 26.7% taking action as a result of conducting the remuneration gap analysis, compared to 54.5% for all industries.
Addressing these ‘action gaps’ are where the sector can begin to make significant changes.
“It's not just doing the audit, it's about taking action,” Black says.
“One of the issues we have in our data set are what we call the action gaps.
“What we're seeing in the fashion sector is that they're conducting audits, but then only about a quarter of them are taking any action as a result.
“That would be the key message for businesses: do a pay audit, do it regularly, work out what your pay gaps are and work out how you're going to close them,” he says.
Doing regular pay audits – and taking action after – actually help the business close its pay gap faster, Black adds.
“We do a report with Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC) every year and this year’s report showed that employers who consistently did pay audits, between 2015 and 2020 actually closed their managerial pay gaps faster than all other companies.
“Whereas those who stopped doing pay gap audits actually saw an increase in managerial pay gaps,” he says.
Other action that can be taken to improve the position of women in leadership includes policies around flexible working, paid parental leave and family and domestic violence.
Where the industry outpaces the national average is in flexible working, where 78.4% of clothing retail employers have a flexible working arrangement policy or strategy, compared to a national average of 75.9%.
The sector is also closer to the national average when it comes to family and domestic violence policies.
The WGEA’s stats show that 59.5% have a formal policy or strategy to support employees who are experiencing family or domestic violence (national average 66.4%), while 86.5% have some measure in place to support employees who are experiencing family or domestic violence (national average of 90.9%).
But where the industry continues to lag behind is paid parental leave for women and men.
Only 16.2% offer paid primary carer’s leave to women and men, compared to 52.4% nationally.
“Normalising access to paid parental leave for both women and men is a really big action area for employers,” Black explains.
“One of the key findings from the BCEC report was those employers who had 13 or more weeks of paid parental leave, reduced the number of female managers who stopped work by half.
“So from the career development perspective of women that's a really big one,” Black says.
And while many Aussies may have gotten used to the idea of flexible working from home, Black says it’s more than just being able to work remotely – especially for those on retail shop floors.
“We need to have a more holistic approach to flexible work because flexible work isn't simply working remotely or working from home.
“Flexible work is a whole range of things that can include compressed hours, different starting and finishing times, working part time and adjusting rosters.
“But we also see an action gap with flexible work.
“For example, in our data set, almost three quarters of employers now have a policy or strategy on flexible work, but very few of them have actually set targets for employee engagement.
“Even fewer have set targets for male employees to engage with flexible work so again, it's about making sure the policies and strategies translate into the lived experience of your employees,” he says.
And while setting the policies and taking action on them is important, Black adds that championing women throughout the organisation is also a key part of progressing forward.
“You’ve got to build the case for change,” he says.
“You've got to sponsor women, you've got to set targets, and you've got to ensure the infrastructure is in place to support a more inclusive and flexible workplace.
“You've got to look at your recruitment and promotion and look at what your views of merit are and working out whether there are in-built biases within it,” he says.
Additionally, the business case for women to be in leadership roles stacks up, Black explains.
“The 2020 BCEC report showed that causal link between increasing the representation of women in leadership and improved company performance profitability and productivity.
“The report also showed that organisations that had set targets to increase female representation on their board actually increased that female representation at twice the rate of those without targets.
“So again, it's really about having that commitment, setting those targets, taking action and recording [the progress] on the target setting that you've done,” he says.
Black stresses that’s it not a one size fits all approach though, and each business has to understand it’s own data to be able to make meaningful changes.
“It's about understanding your own data because every business is different, so there's not a one size fits all approach.
“A policy or programme that works really well in one company might not work so well in another.
“It’s about looking at what will work in your organisation and where you need to take action to make improvements,” he says.
This article first appeared in the November-December 2021 'Women In Fashion Edition' of Ragtrader.