Background

The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency's (EOWA's) Gender Income
Distribution of Top Earners in ASX200 Companies is an important and unprecedented piece
of research investigating issues of pay disparity. Using pay data collected as part of the
2006 EOWA Australian Census of Women in Leadership, this report examines the declared
Top Earners of Specified Executives of the 180 ASX200 companies that declared this
information in their Annual Reports. For the very first time, we are able to explore how
gender interacts with this most senior level status.

Click here to download the full report.

Key Report Findings

	Women hold only 7% of Top Earner positions in the ASX200. (see graph below)
	The overall median pay for women is 58% of the overall median pay for men.
	Female Chief Financial Officers and Chief Operating Officers earn half the wage of their male equivalents.
	In CEO positions, a female CEO earns two-thirds the salary of her male counterpart.
	Men in both line and support positions are more likely to be Top Earners than women.
	Even in support roles where women are concentrated, women have less than a 50% chance of being a Top Earner.
	In nine out of ten industry sectors, the female median salary is less than the male median salary in the same sector.
	Even in Human Resources positions where women are more common, the pay gap is 43%.
	60% of female Top Earners work in the bottom 100 ASX200 companies by market capitalisation.
	A higher percentage of Top Earners are female in ASX200 companies with more women on the Board.