The grievance industry has sprung into action with the release of the latest gender pay gap figures by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, which shows men are over-represented in high-paying roles.

The report claims women earn 78 cents on average for every $1.00 a man makes. Over the course of a year, the difference adds up to $28,425. Cue the outrage.

WGEA found high-paying employers are the most likely to have a pay gap favouring men – and the gap is often larger. It says these differences between the base salaries of men and women broadens significantly after bonuses, superannuation, overtime and allowances are added.

In Australia’s finance sector, the gender balance is near parity with women making up 53 per cent of employees. Yet they face a gender pay gap of 22.3 per cent – nearly double the national figure of 12.1 per cent.

Most reasonable individuals would find such a disparity unsettling. Women have come a long way in the struggle for equality and this report seems to indicate that progress has stalled.

The reason for this according to the WGEA is gender discrimination. It is a sign of ‘structural or cultural differences for one gender’ in the workforce giving men a competitive edge on women.

But has WGEA ever asked women what they want?

Any explanation for the individual choices made by women in the WGEA’s research and messaging is conveniently left out. What if women are choosing to leave their careers to have a family and only want to return to work part-time, or perhaps not at all?

Armies of journalists have been only too happy to overlook this gaping hole in the research and spread the news that women are facing structural workforce discrimination.

This perpetuates the narrative that the patriarchy alone is preventing women from succeeding in their careers and drives affirmative action agendas such as the introduction of quotas.

A sweeping social engineering agenda has been taking place in Australian society and across the Western world which has forced women into work and children into state-based care from an increasingly young age.

Business, government and the media have framed female employment as empowerment, describing motherhood as ‘unpaid caring’ and a ‘penalty’.

WGEA supports this by calling for ‘purposeful action that breaks down traditional notions of what it means to be a worker and carer in the contemporary workplace’. The organisation also calls for the creation of part-time manager roles and new career progression pathways.

While there is a place for more flexible workforce roles that cater for women with caring responsibilities, this type of rhetoric points to a society that prioritises career over family or at least views the two as equally important.

Amid the rapid demographic decline of the 21st Century Australians must remember the value of family and children. Australia’s fertility rate was 1.58 births per woman in 2020. Since 2021 the average age of a woman at the time of her first birth has risen, and the childlessness rate hovers around 16 per cent.

Historically women have played the main role in raising children, and today this is being accommodated alongside the desire for paid employment. But fundamentally, what is important is choice. Some women will prioritise raising their children over climbing the corporate ladder.

Key to this is ensuring families can survive on a single income. Many women are forced into work by the rising cost-of-living, and no longer have the capacity to choose between work and caring responsibilities.

Governments should aim for a regulatory and economic landscape that allows families to manage on a single income. A good first step would be lowering taxes, introducing family income splitting, and addressing housing affordability.

Agencies like WGEA tend only to fuel division rather than offer real solutions. Taxpayers supporting families should not be expected to fund bureaucracies that fail to reflect their priorities or concerns.

Instead of an agency designed to scrutinise and prosecute the issue of workplace equality, perhaps Australia needs an agency that seeks to encourage family and children. Any healthy society must protect and promote the status of mothers over and above that of the career woman alone.

Australia could look to the examples of Hungary or Poland, countries which have taken the issue of falling birthrates seriously and have created new ministerial roles dedicated to family affairs.

Rather than fixating on workplace disparities, policymakers should make it easier for families to thrive on a single income – giving women a real choice.

Brianna McKee is a Research Fellow and the National Manager of Generation Liberty at the Institute of Public Affairs.