Steel yourselves, female workers of the world. You know that male colleague, the one who is not as diligent or talented as you are?
Well, odds are that the last time you both went for a bonus, he got more than you, even if he did not perform as well.
Not only do women earn less base pay, on average, than men, but this inequity extends to performance-based rewards like bonuses, new Australian research shows.
Despite getting the same performance ratings as their male colleagues, women get smaller bonuses on average, according to a report from human resources consultants Mercer.
Even men who only partially met their performance objectives got bonuses that were 35 per cent larger than their female counterparts.
And the gap increases as salaries increase and women progress through their careers, according to 60,000 data records collected by Mercer.
The problem with bonuses is that their allocation is never transparent, says RMIT's Professor Sara Charlesworth. And while managers might not intend to pay women less, the data clearly shows "unconscious bias" kicks in.
"It's the old truism; women have to be performing at a certain level, while men just have to be seen as having the potential to perform to that level," Professor Charlesworth said.
The most recent figures show the gender pay gap in Australia sits at 18 per cent, with full-time male workers earning an average of $1590 a week, while women earn $300 less, on average.
Sabiha Vorajee worked for two decades in the "rewards" (bonuses and salary) area of large corporations, and noticed most of her conversations about how to get better conditions were with men.
"I would get the woman at the company together and ask, 'Why aren't you coming to me to have these conversations?'," she said.
Frustrated, Ms Vorajee, started her own Sydney-based business coaching women in their careers. Clients tell Ms Vorajee they struggle to be assertive and find it nerve-racking to talk to their manager about pay.
"Global research shows that not only do women not ask, but they can be perceived negatively if they do ask," Ms Vorajee says.
Corporations serious about addressing the gender pay gap for staff should have checks in place when allocating bonuses, says Garry Adams, the leader of Mercer's talent division in the Pacific.
"This provides hard evidence of why pay equality can't be simply viewed through the lens of fixed pay," he said.
For the past two decades, the national gap has never fallen lower than 15 per cent. In Victoria, it is currently 13.5 per cent. The Mercer report compares men and women who do the same job within the same organisation, and therefore arrives at a smaller pay gap, of about 6 per cent for women in management.
Since 2012 all private sector firms that employ more than 100 people - which represents about a third of workforce - have to report data on gender pay gaps to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
The most recent data revealed an even bigger pay gap of 24.7 per cent because, unlike the ABS weekly earnings, this figure includes bonuses.
There are more women working than ever before. Female participation in the Australian workforce increased from 60 per cent in 2001 to 65 per cent in 2011.
The difference in pay - as well as career breaks for women having children - has other implications too. Australian women, on average, are retiring with a super balance that is only 53 per cent of the average male balance, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia.
And while about two thirds of companies provide superannuation on the paid portion of parental leave, almost none (5 per cent) paid super throughout the duration of parental leave, the report from Mercer found.
