Healthcare, a question of numbers – women dominate in quantity, not salary

As need for health and aged care surges, there is a growing sub-trend analysts are identifying in these sectors. While public and private leaders have expressed growing concerns with filling labour positions to meet the uptick in services required, it has been women who have been answering the call. A recent report from Deputy shows that within healthcare women dominate the numbers of those employed and recently hired but it is men who retain the largest presence in the largest-paying roles. Analysts in the report hedge that healthcare is grappling with a participation versus position challenge. Advocates continue to voice that is and will be widely beneficial to support staff in health and aged care through policy adjustment to raise up leaders from experienced front-line staff. This means targeted measures to support women, particularly in shift work, to leverage niche and invaluable skills from front-line success to leadership strength.

Report insight

Behind Deputy’s report is Dr Karunanethy, an economist and academic. He analysed 60,446,758 shifts and 188,010,610 hours of work, with 682,430 shift workers and has been able to highlight particular trends Australia is facing.

In addition to confirming that men continue to dominate the highest paid salaries in Australia when it comes to healthcare, the data also indicated that in shift work, male earnings eclipsed female.

Male hourly earnings saw a rise from $43.10 at the head of 2022 to $45.50 three years later. Across the same arc, female hourly pay rose to a greater degree but from a lower starting point, to sit substantially lower. From the beginning of 2022, female hourly pay in shift work in healthcare sat around $35.90 and ended in early 2025 at $39.40.

The data analysed by Dr Karunanethy also displayed other trends; Within healthcare, men tended to be congregate around higher-paid clinical, specialist and managerial roles. Women were found to be more likely found in nursing and support positions.

Changing composition

The report found that within the intensifying demand to fill health and aged care roles, predominantly in shift-work areas of the sectors, healthcare exhibited the steepest increase of filled positions by female participants.

Female candidates answering and fulfilling roles in healthcare shift-work rose by 2.8% in one year, between 2024 and 2025.

Dr Karunanethy additionally made note of a growing trend within shift-work and the Australian healthcare sector. Not only was shift-work growing as a type of employment offered by public and private employers, the likelihood of workers having more than one job was found to be among the highest within this sector.

Karunanethy found that Australia healthcare had one of the most elevated rates of poly-employment (multiple concurrent jobs), sitting at 7.5%, with no signs of slowing down. With further scrutiny however, Karunanethy indicated that lowering termination rates, of workers staying in multiple roles, may not be due to workers wishing for more roles but rather a sign of deeper workforce strain.

Dr Karunanethy understands the growing numbers of workers remaining in roles may likely be due to a lack of available replacements rather than wanting to remain for improved conditions or satisfaction with remuneration.

Advocates highlight this data showcases a concern long held for the health and aged care sectors. Burnout staff working with limited resources and longer hours than wished, is now growing as a problem, as conscientious staff remain in roles waiting for replacements to allow them to depart without leaving seniors and clients without support and services.

Stabilising

The report indicates that after years of emergency expansion, that of the healthcare sector hiring within an environment of reactive need to catch up to demand, there is a shift underway. Karunanethy sees the data highlight that from a phase of emergency workforce growth, the sector is now heading into a more stable and sustained labour market environment.

Reshma Saujani is an American lawyer, activist, and entrepreneur, when it comes to the stability that sectors are seeking in terms of labour consistency and service quality, she emphatically advocates for work policies that support women to excel in their field.

Particularly for shift work she notes, management has the opportunity to explore efficiencies of rostering to efficiently find replacements if a worker is suddenly called away to look after a parent or child, a trend that experts across anthropology and statistics indicate predominantly falls to women.

In order for women to be supported to develop into the leadership roles, commanding the highest paid salaries as found by Deputy’s report, Saujani encourages government, sector leadership and women to lean into entrenching policy decisions that support that leadership trajectory. 

From higher subsidies for childcare, improved rostering management and established mentorships encouraging women to pursue leadership, leaders like Saujani and hundreds like her in Australia see strategic and operational ‘good’. In supporting intelligent, strategic and experienced shift staff, particularly women, Australia’s health and aged care sectors may yet see greater robustness, sustainability and quality to meet the exponential demand to come.