The City of Sydney leads on gender equity

The latest City of Sydney gender equity review found an overall pay gap of 7.8% in favour of women.

By comparison, Australia’s national gender pay gap is 14% in favour of men. In public sector organisations, it’s 10.7% in favour of men.

We’re one of the first local governments in Australia to monitor and publicly report gender pay equity, with results well above national averages.

We also have more women employed in higher paying jobs across the organisation. But there’s still work to be done.

When we compare men and women in equitable salaried roles, there’s a small gender pay gap of 1.1% in favour of men, but it’s an improvement on last year’s result of 1.7%.

We’ve just announced extra measures to support working parents, doubling the amount of paid partner leave employees can receive at the time of birth or adoption of a child.

Non-primary carers will now be entitled to 4 weeks paid leave or 8 weeks at half pay.

We hope this better supports families in finding a more balanced approach to work and care responsibilities.

Staff on parental leave already receive superannuation for up to 52 weeks, helping close the longer-term wealth gap between men and women.

Employees also have access to generous maternity leave and adoption leave provisions – 18 weeks on full pay including superannuation (or 36 weeks at half pay) and an additional 34 weeks of unpaid leave.

We were recognised as an inclusive workplace and employer of choice for women in the 2019 Australian HR Awards.