Women are effectively working for free until the end of the year

Ladies, most of us are working the rest of the year for free. Effectively.

The latest data on the "gender pay gap" has revealed men are earning $26,853 more than women working full-time in Australia.

Women's base salary is also lower than men's — down 2.2 percent in two years to just 17.7 percent.

WGEA director Libby Lyons told The Daily Telegraph that she wanted to see women value themselves and put up their hands for more pay rises.

"Ask for what you know you deserve," she said.

“When it comes to negotiations men tend to ask for more and are given more — women tend to be a bit more reticent in that area.

“We’re not good at valuing ourselves, so we don’t tend to put ourselves out there and ask for what we’re worth.’’

The data also shows more men are being appointed and promoted to manager positions over women.

Men in key management roles are raking in almost six-figures — $93,884 a year — more than top female managers.

Women make up only 16 percent of the country's chief executives and only 28.5 percent of key management personnel, the report shows. Less than a quarter of board chairs and directors are women.

Encouragingly, the report suggests more women are climbing the corporate ladder, being given 44 percent of promotions to managerial jobs from 2015/2016.

This could be due to more organisations implementing overall gender equality strategies. More than 70 percent of companies now have such policies in place.