Despite Australia’s standing as a successful multicultural nation, people from non-English-speaking backgrounds (NESB) are starkly underrepresented amongst the senior leadership of many major organisations. This discrepancy, which extends to the Australian Public Service (APS), poses alarming questions about inclusivity in leadership roles in Australia.
In our comprehensive research spanning 20 years and involving millions of data points, we examine promotions within the APS, focusing on gender, disability and ethnic diversity. In all of our work, we control for characteristics that might affect promotion and success in the public service. Even after accounting for these things, large discrepancies remain. The results on ethnic diversity are particularly unsettling:
- Public servants from NESB face lower promotion prospects throughout their careers, irrespective of when they migrated to Australia — or even if they were born in Australia or arrived here before kindergarten. APS staff from English-speaking backgrounds are around 30% more likely to be promoted to senior analyst, 40% more likely to be promoted to management and 60% more likely to be promoted to senior executive service (SES).
- Staff from Asian backgrounds suffer the most significant promotion deficits, while European-born individuals of NESB experience only slightly better outcomes. This discrepancy suggests that the prospects for staff from Asian backgrounds are partly due to factors other than language and that ethnicity inhibits promotion within the APS.
- Our research suggests promotion prospects for NESB staff have not improved over the two-decade period our study covered. If anything, their situation has worsened.
The promotion pathways for staff with a disability also give cause for concern. Our research reveals that at junior and mid-level positions staff who do not report a disability enjoy better promotional prospects than those with a disability even when they look similar in every other way. At the most senior levels, prospects for the two cohorts even out.
Promotion prospects over time for NESB and disabled staff stand in contrast to the contemporary relationship between gender and promotion.
Historically, gender disparities favouring men for promotion were evident, particularly at most senior levels. Only twenty years ago women occupied less than 30% of senior executive positions in the APS.
However, gender diversity strategies were implemented by the Australian Public Service Commission in 2012, and since then commendable progress has been made towards gender parity in leadership roles. At the highest levels, while men continue to occupy a small majority of SES positions, today women in general have better chances than men of being welcomed into that service.
The outcomes for gender, following the application of strategies that included workplace adaptability, gender targets, and public awareness campaigns, demonstrate that focused, actionable promotion and diversity policies can and do make a difference.
The current under-promotion of NESB staff, especially into senior roles, is a disservice to the diverse and multicultural Australian community that the APS ought to better reflect. To their great credit, the APSC is now drafting an employment strategy under its new Commissioner to address this unfortunate situation: a positive step. Hopefully, it will lead to tangible actions and policies implemented with the same determination and sense of urgency that was applied to gender inequities a decade ago.
Our research has focussed solely on the public sector. While data for the private sector is not so readily available, it could be imputed through other means, such as income and tax records. We recommend commencing research in this sector. Our data on the movement of staff into and out of the public sector suggests a similar situation exists in the private sector. Where these disparities of opportunity can be shown to exist, as a successful multicultural society we should find best find the means to correct them.
READ MORE:
Why a cultural diversity target for public sector leadership is overdue
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