This research will find the gender pay gap in financial and insurance industries in Australia. It will not only benefit the domain of gender pay gap but it will also help in addressing alternative options that will help sideline this essential business issue.

1. GENDER PAY GAP IN
FINANCIAL AND INSURANCE
INDUSTRY OF AUSTRALIA
Research Methodology

2. Research Methodology and Analysis
3.1 Purpose of Report
This research will find the gender pay gap in financial and insurance industries in Australia. It
will not only benefit the domain of gender pay gap but it will also help in addressing
alternative options that will help sideline this essential business issue.
3.2 Methodology
According to Horrace and Oaxaca (2001), the authors analyzed the gender pay gap in
information technology industry, they choose key factors in trading activities (e.g., price rates
and trade ratios) is then examined them in their research framework. Our research utilized the
similar methods, the research is based on data quantity research from government data bases.
Moreover, Walker (2000) states that the industry profitability, industry employment growth,
average education levels, and salary and consumption growth might all have an influence on
the gender wage gap. The research will focused on the trend of gender pay gap and its
relationship to the reginal economic factors (e.g. GDP,CPI) through analyze data from the
data bases. This study compares the gender differences in the financial and insurance industry
in South Australia (SA) to other states in Australia. The method make it possible to study the
importance of gender in pay model and provide new information about the existence of
gender gaps in the financial and insurance industry (Skalpe 2007).The unit of analysis for this
research project are the state employees in Australia and time scope of the study is the year
from 2005-2015.
3.2.1 Sample population
As the key purpose of this research is to analyse the issue of gender pay gap in the financial
and insurance industries of Australia, the sample population for the research will be
consisting of employees working in the respective industry. These will include both males
and females, while referring to the wage income of every employee at same positions, and
identifying the key differences in the wage income earned by men and women in the industry.
Based on this research, it will be identified that in the industry of finance and insurance, the
rate of gender pay gap is highest.
3.2.2 Data collection
In terms of industry, as of the year 2015, it has been identified that gender pay gap is lowest
in the industry of food and accommodation being 7 per cent, and is highest in the industry of

3. finance and insurance being 30.5 per cent. The below table provides a better information
about the gender pay gap in terms of industry:
(Fig: Gender Pay Gap in Australia in terms of Industry: 2014-2015)
(Fig: Gender Pay Gap in Australia in terms of Profession or Occupation: 1997 to 2010)

4. (Fig: Share of Women Workers in the Financial and Insurance Industry)
3.2.3 Financial and Insurance industry defined
The financial and insurance industry of Australia has been enjoying huge success as a large
population of insurers are being driven towards success from increased value of premiums, a
quieter period of weather event and focusing upon the discipline of expense. A strategic focus
has been announced by a number of insurers to underwrite discipline in accordance with the
pricing and selection of risk, with key focus on business of higher margin having lower
frequencies of claim. The capital coverage of the industry has been holding the position,
stronger than ever, being more by 1.9 times of the minimum requirement for APRA, in
comparison with 1.82 times as of the year 2013. Reduction of expense, and the improvement
of experience for the customers has been the key areas of focus continuously as the key focus
of insurers is on transformations of technology for streamlining policy and claiming systems
of management.
3.3 Analysis
In terms of full- time employment, on an average, men earn 1,587.40 dollars on weekly basis,
and women earn less than 298.10 dollars on an average in the industry of finance and
insurance. There has been a slight increase in the wage gap between women and men, as
announcements have been made by the government regarding plans for watering down the
requirements of reporting related to the business of finance and insurance.

5. (Fig: Trend of Gender Wage Gap in Financial and Insurance Industry: Comparison between
Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States [1970 to 2012])
As per the data presented by Australian Bureau of Statistics for November, 2015, there has
been a major rise in the wage gap by 1.4 per cent in comparison with the data of November,
2013, reaching 18.8 per cent. Overall there has been a significant slow growth of wages in the
industry since the year 1997. There has been a rise in the wages by 2.5 per cent only since the
past 12 month. Such high records in the financial and insurance industry for gender pay gap
is of major concern for the entire nation. This depicts the prominent general variations in
earnings between men and women throughout the board of companies.
3.4 Measurement
A number of research papers and peer- reviewed articles had been referred to in conducting
the research. It is evident from this research that gender wage gap in the financial and
insurance industry is significantly high over the agenda of Australia, and hence, official
sources have collected this data by the use of several different tools of evaluation such as
surveys and direct data from the organization. On the whole, the economic data is released by
conducting an Annual Survey of Earnings and Hours, with information collected over the
make- up, distribution and levels of hours paid and earnings made. There is production of
result by gender and several breakdowns in terms of geography, occupation and industry,
along with age groups and private and public sectors.

6. 3.4.1 Reliability and validity
The facts and figures claimed in this research has been collected from a number of official
sources of data regarding gender pay gap in the industry of finance and insurance of
Australia. In order to enhance the validity and reliability of this data, each and every fact has
been supported by appropriate citations.

7. References
Barón, J.D., 2010. Occupational Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap in Private‐and
Public‐Sector Employment: A Distributional Analysis*. Economic Record, 86(273), pp.227-
246.
Lips, H.M., 2013. The gender pay gap: Challenging the rationalizations. Perceived equity,
discrimination, and the limits of human capital models. Sex Roles, 68(3-4), pp.169-185.
Preston, A., 2005. Australia's “other” gender wage gap: Baby boomers and compulsory
superannuation accounts. Feminist Economics, 11(2), pp.79-101.
Stayn, H., 2013. Gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations. Social
psychology and economics, p.239.
Watson, I., 2010. Decomposing the gender pay gap in the Australian managerial labour
market. Australian Journal of Labour Economics, 13(1), p.49.
Weil, P., 2013. Total work and gender: facts and possible explanations. Journal of Population
Economics, 26(1), pp.239-261.