Using data to drive gender equality in employment: More power to the people?

Abstract

After almost 30 years of unsuccessfully trying to effect gender equality in employment through legislation that asks employers to self-review and report on processes, the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth) represents a new regulatory approach. The regulatory shift is toward using information disclosure and standards to drive gender equality by enabling employees and other stakeholders to demand better gender performance of employers. This approach is evident in the nature and form of information employers are required to disclose, the public availability of the reports, and the critical role played by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency in disseminating and deciphering the data for stakeholders. In this article we explore this shift by tracing disclosure requirements under earlier versions of the legislation and contrasting these to the new regime. While not sufficient to bring about gender equality, providing this data is certainly necessary to enable employees to demand better gender performance by employers.