Gender parity is still a long way off, particularly regarding pay and flexible working arrangements.
Women working in digital health earn $500 to $1500 less on average per week before tax than their male colleagues, according to a new report on gender diversity in the digital health workforce published by Telstra Health and RMIT University.
Based on 551 anonymous responses gathered from a specialist digital health workforce census released nationwide between 1 July and 13 August 2023, the report showed male respondents were significantly more likely to report higher earnings with 17% reporting a weekly salary of between $3000-3499 compared to 4% of women.
Men were also more likely than women to report having recently had an open conversation regarding their salary with their immediate supervisor, with 47% indicating they’d had such a discussion within the last 12 months compared to 41% of women, while 64% of men said they planned on pursuing some form of professional development in the next three years versus 57% of women.
“While we celebrate the strides made in increasing women’s representation and experience in digital health, it is unfortunately not surprising to see gender disparity in leadership and remuneration in a female-dominated workforce,” AIDH CEO Anja Nikolic said.
“The 2024 report underscores the urgent need to address persistent issues such as gender pay equity and the underrepresentation of women in senior roles. This also extends to all kinds of diversity, not just gender.
“A diverse [digital health] workforce representative of the population will be better placed to ensure our systems are inclusive and guarantee the best health outcomes for everyone.”
The report also showed men working in the digital health sector were more likely to have flexible work arrangements both in terms of location (in-office, remote or hybrid) and hours worked, with 33.6% of women saying they were required to work on-site around specified hours compared to 27% of men while 22% of women working predominantly in-office had the option to choose their start and finish times compared to 26% of men.
More than 97% of female respondents said that progress and change were needed to achieve gender equity across the digital health workforce compared to 90% of men, while among women more than half (56%) felt they needed to prove their skills and competency in the workplace compared to 50% of men.
However, the findings also indicated progress had been achieved in some areas towards gender parity, with the percentage of women with more than 10 years’ experience in digital health roles increasing by 10% in 2023 compared to findings from the inaugural 2021 census.
More women demonstrated an intention to remain in the digital health workforce in 2023 compared to two years ago, with 13% saying they were unsure whether they wanted to continue working in digital health in the latest specialist census compared to 4% in 2021.
Women were also more likely to be employed in managerial roles than men, with 34% reporting they were responsible for managing others in their role compared to 13% of men.
However, men were more likely to indicate that their organisation was invested in its employees’ career development, with 54% agreeing or strongly agreeing to the statement compared to 31% of women, down 17% and 16% respectively from the 2021 census.
Findings from the latest report were presented at the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre’s (DHCRC) Diverse Digital Health Workforce event, held in Melbourne last week with panellists discussing the report’s findings including University of Melbourne professor of health informatics Kathleen Gray, Alfred Health chief digital health officer Amy McKimm and Ms Caroline Lewin, head of operations at Telstra Health.
The full report, Gender Diversity in Australia’s Digital Health Workforce 2024, is available to view here.