More than half of Australian women earned the national minimum wage or less last year, compared to 38 per cent of men.

The latest census shows 53 per cent of women aged 15 or older were earning $799 a week or less, including those on no income.

The minimum wage from July 1, 2021, was $772.60 a week. It will rise to $812.60 a week from the beginning of next month.

Australia’s median wage was $805 per week, the census showed.

People in the ACT had the highest national median wage at $1203 a week, while Tasmanians had the lowest at $701.

Women (15.3 per cent) were more likely to do unpaid volunteer work than men (12.8 per cent), with 14 per cent of Australians volunteering.

While the amount of unpaid domestic labour dropped slightly between the 2021 census and the data collected five years earlier, women are still doing more of the heavy lifting.

About 68 per cent of men do unpaid domestic work, compared to 76 per cent of women, but when it comes to the amount of hours, the differences were more noticeable.

About 12 per cent of men do 15 or more hours of unpaid domestic work each week, compared to almost one in three women.

Nearly 17 per cent of those men identified as a husband or partner, compared to 42 per cent of women who identified as a wife or partner who do household chores for 15 or more hours per week.

Women are also more likely to do unpaid disability care work, at 14 per cent as opposed to 10 per cent of men.

The bulk of female unpaid carers were women aged 35 to 69.

– AAP

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