The third year of data collected by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency covered 12000 employers and 4 million employees during the period from April 2015 to March 2016. The results were released on 16 November 2016.

Women make up half of Australia’s workforce, but only earn 77% of men’s average full time income. In dollar terms, full time female employees had $26853 less to spend than the average male employee, with this difference increasing to $93884 for the top level of management. Women are also under represented in leadership roles, holding 16.3% of CEO positions and 37.4% of all manager roles. Employers are embracing proactive gender equality policies in greater numbers and for the first time, over 70% of employers reported they have gender equality policies in place.

Gender pay gap (full-time total remuneration): 23.1% (down 1.6 pp) ’ Largest industry gender pay gap: Financial and Insurance Services: 33.5% (down 2.6 pp) ’ Key Management Personnel who are women: 28.5% (up 2.4 pp) ’ Employers with policies to support gender equality: 70.7% (up 4.5 pp) ’ Employers who have conducted a gender pay gap analysis: 27.0% (up 3.0 pp) ’ Appointments of women to manager roles: 42.6% (new data point) As I have mentioned previously , gender equality in the workplace makes good business sense. To learn more about workplace gender equality and workplace flexibility, I encourage you to visit the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s website .