Words by Leonora Risse
Gender equality is measured not just by counting women’s share of the workforce but by revealing how many are in decision-making roles.
The Women in Media Dataset is a deep dive into the Australian media workforce numbers and shows that while women comprise almost half (49 per cent) of workers, they hold only 30 per cent of Chief Executive and Managing Director roles.
This is where women – despite their high levels of education, capabilities and career aspirations – are still being left out of the picture.
Gender balance in decision-making matters in all industries. But especially in the media.
These are the jobs with influence and impact. The jobs that determine whose stories are told and how. What topics get airtime. What products are promoted. Whose views get broadcast. Which projects get resourced. And who is recruited. Ultimately, which topics and voices drive the national agenda, public debate and discussion.
This gender imbalance at senior decision-making level is not uniform across the sector: it’s driven by private media companies. The public sector media, by contrast, has achieved 50:50 gender balance at this senior level.
Even before executive level, this gender imbalance in decision-making comes through in occupation patterns.
Within the media-specific occupations, the most heavily male-concentrated jobs revolve around directorship. Namely, Directors of Photography, Technical Directors, and Film, Television, Radio and Stage Directors. Women make up only around one in four of these occupations. In the case of Directors of Photography, women make up fewer than one in ten.
These are pivotal decision-making roles with authority and responsibility to oversee, control, instruct and coordinate media activities.
At the other end of the scale, the most highly female-concentrated occupations within the industry are Book or Script Editors, Copywriters, Authors and Public Relations Professionals, which are all at least two-thirds female. These jobs involve far less decision-making seniority.
The under-representation of women shows that gender biases and barriers still hamper women’s career paths.
This statistical picture detected that it’s a path with even more hurdles for women from lower socio-economic backgrounds and cultural minorities. There is more diversity among their male colleagues. This points to the additional layers of barriers and biases that women from marginalised groups encounter.
These are biases that ripple through into a persistent gender pay gap.
What it means in dollars
Company-level gender gaps in Australia’s media companies average 10 per cent. But reach as high as 16.4 per cent in the field of Publishing and 11.8 per cent in the field of Broadcasting.
This gender gap is based on median annualised total remuneration, which includes payments above base salary such as bonuses and overtime. Even without this remuneration component, the industry average is estimated at 9.9 per cent.
This pay gap data comes from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). All private companies with 100 or more employees are legally required to report their data to WGEA. As a result of legislative reforms, last year WGEA began publishing company-level gender pay gaps.
Mark your calendars for the next release of company-level gender pay gaps on 4 March 2025. Via the WGEA website, it will be possible to look up the gender equality metrics of every media company that reports to WGEA.
While waiting for the newest numbers, last year’s WGEA numbers for the 2022-23 reporting period are available online. Among Australia’s largest media companies, Bloomberg Australia reported a gender pay gap in total remuneration of 14.9 per cent, Seven West Media had a gap of 13.8 per cent, Nine Entertainment was 10.1 per cent, and News Limited had a gap of 9.4 per cent.
Greater transparency in pay gap information is designed to enlighten the public, empower employees, and incentivise employers to take stronger action to make progress.
Solutions backed by research
The data and research prove that the gender gaps in the workforce aren’t the fault of women. It’s not because women are less qualified. Or less capable. Or less confident. These excuses have been squashed by the research and evidence.
The research points, instead, to the need to interrogate the gender stereotypes, biased judgements, and traditional industry cultures that still cloud the path for women.
Here are three evidenced-based actions that target these barriers.
Firstly, companies can invest more in systematic data analysis, such as conducting regular gender pay gap audits, including at management and executive level. Tools are now available to routinely analyse the content and output that media organisations produce, such as the gender composition of their bylines and sources, and gender stereotypes in language and imagery. This all contributes to underlying gender biases that contribute to women’s under-representation at top level.
Secondly, it’s not enough to simply analyse. Efforts are more likely to be effective when accompanied by accountability mechanisms. For example, regularly reporting the company gender pay gap to the board and including gender equality metrics in manager KPIs.
Thirdly, Australian workplaces can do more to enable, encourage and support men to be more involved in care-giving. An example policy is expanding employer-provided paid parental leave for fathers and partners. Senior executives and managers can be pivotal in leading by example and authentically supporting staff with these caring responsibilities.
This focus on shifting expectations and expanding opportunities for men is often a missing component in gender equality policies. And for many businesses, it doesn’t fall into the traditional business model or profit equation. And for media companies, it might not be seen to harmonise with a work culture of intensely long hours, pressing deadlines and on-call availability that are hallmarks of the sector. But it’s proving to be an essential ingredient for gender equality, productivity and wellbeing. Which ultimately means it’s part of the equation that leaders of organisations need to take note of and act on.
Leonora Risse is an Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Canberra and an economist who specialises in gender equality. She is a Research Fellow with the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia and serves as an Expert Panel Member on gender pay equity for the Fair Work Commission. She formerly held roles with the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University, and the Australian Government Productivity Commission. Leonora is a co-founder and former National Chair of the Women in Economics Network (WEN) in Australia.