The Australian Government is now operating in line with Caretaker Conventions, pending the outcome of the 2025 federal election.
Every year the Workplace Gender Equality Agency reports on 6 Gender Equality Indicators for private sector employers with 100 or more employees across 19 industries. This includes STEM-qualified industries.
Compare the proportion of women and men in STEM industries, health industries and all industries, including the distribution of women and men in senior positions.
The Workforce Gender Equality Agency changed the data collection methods for senior positions in 2021, so this data is presented separately to 2016–2020 data. Two new manager categories were introduced in the 2021 census:
Source: Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) 2023
In 2023, women made up 29% of workers in STEM industries. This increased by 1 percentage point from 2022 (28%). 25% of senior managers in STEM industries were women, which was also an increase of 1 percentage point from 2022 (24%).
Women made up 78% of workers in health industries and 51% of workers in all industries (which includes STEM, health and non-STEM industries). These results were similar to 2022.
Scientific research services remained the STEM industry with the largest representation of women. Women made up 65% of workers in that industry. 58% of Heads of Business in this industry were women, as well as 47% of senior managers, and 63% of other managers.
The highest proportion of women in senior STEM management positions were in Key Management Personnel roles (27%) and other manager roles (26%). The lowest proportion were in CEO positions. Women made up 10% of CEOs across all STEM industries, compared to 47% of CEOs in health industries and 24% of CEOs across all industries.
See the proportion of employers in STEM, non-STEM and health industries with gender equality strategies and policies.
Source: Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) 2023
In 2023, 87% of employers in STEM industries had overall gender equality polices or strategies. This is 3 percentage points higher than 2022, and 8 percentage points higher than 2018.
94% of employers in STEM industries had a recruitment gender equality policy, compared to 85% in 2018.
The biggest increase over time was in formal policies or strategies to support employees experiencing family and domestic violence. 86% of employers in STEM industries had these policies in 2023 compared to 44% in 2018, an increase of 42 percentage points.
Industries shown above align to Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) codes. In the STEM Equity Monitor, industries are defined as STEM industries when more than 50% of people in the industry reported a STEM qualification in the 2021 Census of Population and Housing.
This data is from private sector employers with 100 or more employees that reported to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). The 2020–21 WGEA dataset was smaller because of the impacts of COVID-19, changes to the WGEA reporting platform, and changes to the way corporate groups reported using the new platform. Data is not available for some industries due to insufficient sample sizes.
Discrepancies between WGEA Data Explorer and all industries data shown above are due to timing of output. All industries data in this article contains additional employers because it was compiled more recently than WGEA Data Explorer.
Read more about our methodology and this data.
