Exploring Intersectionality | Spotlight on Migrant Women
Exploring Intersectionality...
Migrant Women have helped make our Multicultural Nation what it is today – contributing their unique perspectives, knowledge, and skills to build a stronger, richer, more diverse, and resilient Australia. While we celebrate how they’ve helped shape our diverse nation – we acknowledge the disproportionate disparity in pay, representation and opportunity they continue to face. A long-standing gap that will required sustained action to address. We're taking the opportunity to reflect on the barriers we’re facing, as a country, in closing the gender gap – a gap that Monash University's MCHRI report has forecasted will not close for another 200 years, at the current rate of change – and to assess the role of intersectionality.
Multicultural Australia
The estimated number of international migrants has increased globally over the past five decades. According to the United Nations approximately 281 million people are international migrants, living in a country other than their country of birth.
And the picture is no different in Australia. According to the 2021 Census more than half of all Australians are first- or second-generation migrants and 7 million (27.6%) were born overseas. That’s almost a third of our country. We’re a diverse lot – with over 5.5 million of us speaking one of 400 languages other than English at home.
However, despite broad acknowledgement of the richness that diversity has brought this country – The cultural diversity of our population is not proportionately represented – particularly within senior ranks of our most influential institutions. Notably, according to a @PWC 2021 report, 7% of directors on ASX300 companies were identified as having a non-Anglo Celtic or non-European ancestry compared to 25.4% of the population as a whole.
And the lack of cultural diversity doesn’t end there. In fact, according to a report by the Australian Human Rights Commission: 95% of senior leaders in Australia have an Anglo-Celtic or European background. Although those who have non-European and Indigenous backgrounds make up an estimated 24 per cent of the Australian population, such backgrounds account for only 5% of senior leaders.
The key challenge?
We’ve stagnated in our progress on closing the gender gap in Australia – with the latest Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) Scorecard showing the pay gap has remained stagnant year on year at 22.8%. And while this presents a grim picture – the glimmer, on this front, is that at least we have good data at the overarching level.
So how are we doing with pay and representation gaps when it comes to ethnicity and race?
The truth is, we just don’t know. Whilst we have great longitudinal data on gender equity at an overall level from the WGEA, for the most part we just don’t have access to the intersectional data required to analyse and assess racial and ethnic diversity – which makes it almost impossible to address. After all you can’t change what you can’t see.
Globally, however, there are some fascinating learnings…
So what is intersectional data?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Intersectionality is; ‘The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.’
The ‘double disadvantage’ in the UK
Research in the UK has unearthed a ‘double disadvantage’ that contributes to the gender disparity:
Being female, and;
Being non-white.
With a Fawcett Society Study revealing that the gender pay gap in Britain is shaped by racial inequity. The study – which demonstrates that while women from different ethnic groups face different gender pay gaps – there is commonality in that the gender pay gap increases for most of those outside of the ‘white-female’ category.
The study also found Women of most ethnic minority groups experience a greater gender pay gap than men of the same ethnicity. Which is clearly illustrative of the double disadvantage.
The story is largely the same in the USA…
Across the pond in the USA, the story is largely the same. According to the most recent data from National Partnership for Women and Families, recognising that women from all type of employment (full time, part time etc) are on the whole paid 77¢ on the dollar versus their male counterparts.
When taking into consideration intersectional data, The data illustrates ‘there is indeed a racial pay gap among women in the U.S. – though only for black women, Native American women and Latinas, but not for Asian women.’
So how can businesses in Australia do better?
Whilst there is no legislative requirement in Australia (and many other countries) to report on gender pay gap intersectionality – if we want to have equity in workplaces, we need to understand our data across all dimensions. This will enable us to be more targeted when it comes to understanding, addressing and progressing on closing our gender pay gaps. By undertaking these types of analyses, we can ensure that ALL segments and peoples in our business are being considered in our mission to create truly equitable and inclusive workplaces. After all we all want a better world of work where we can all belong!
Let’s look at what your organisation can do to lead the way…
👉 Have you undertaken a pay gap analysis across your entire business in the last twelve months?
👉 How far did your analysis go? (by level? department? By division?)
👉 Did you include ethnicity or race as part of the analysis?
👉 Did you include any other intersectional data cuts as part of the analysis (for example, location, age, sexuality, disability)
✅ If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of these, what action did you take as a result?
❎ If you answered no to most of those questions, there is no better time to start than now.
Just don’t have access to the right intersectional data?
Just don’t have access to the right intersectional data – right now? No worries. You can make it right. The key to navigating data collection is trust, transparency and buy-in:
Be clear on your intent for gathering the information
Be clear on how you use and store the data, including your security posture
Get buy-in: Consult with your workplace and gain input on the why? and how?
Be transparent: Share your findings once you analyse the data sets
Update your people regularly on your progress and how your business is tracking with outcomes
Get guidance: Check-out the Diversity Council Australia Ltd Counting Culture Principles to help guide your approach for mapping cultural diversity in your workforce
Need help?
Get in touch. We specialise in getting data right – right from the start. Who are we? We’re equidi – a one of a kind, Aussie-grown platform that’s helping businesses take a lead on levelling up the ledger on gender, this century. We provide real-time visibility over pay-gap and workforce representation, across every part of your business on a single dashboard. With AI-generated recommendations to set goals, track progress and lift your performance, every day – we’ll empower you to see the change, so you can be the change.
