The 2026 Status of Women Report Card, released before International Women’s Day on March 8, puts Australia at 13th globally for gender equality.

It’s the nation’s highest-ever score and a significant improvement from a rank of 43rd in 2022.

But a little under half of Australians surveyed by market researcher Ipsos believed that “when it comes to giving women equal rights with men, things have gone far enough” in Australia.

This is a significant increase from 2019 when only 31 per cent of people surveyed held this view. 

Three in five men believed the push for equality discriminated against them, while optimism for the future was stronger among young women than young men.

The report card showed significant challenges affecting gender equality in Australia, such as women shouldering most unpaid care, facing high rates of intimate partner violence, and continuing to earn less than men.

Also, most Australians work in a sector or occupation dominated by their own gender, which highlights the need to disentangle gender segregation from the labour market.

Technology‑facilitated abuse and the increasing normalisation of digital tracking and monitoring among young people are new and growing issues affecting women’s autonomy, safety and wellbeing.

“While we are seeing encouraging signs of change in some areas, including early shifts in the sharing of paid and unpaid care, serious and persistent challenges continue to affect women’s safety, security and opportunity,” Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher said.

“The report card makes clear that sustained, deliberate action by governments, workplaces and communities is essential if we are to keep making progress and improve outcomes for women and girls across Australia.”

According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s annual gender pay gap results for 10,500 Australian employers, released on March 3, more employer gender pay gaps are smaller today than they were a year ago.

It said the public sector has an average total remuneration gender pay gap of 6.4 per cent, compared to the private sector’s 21.1 per cent gap.

Women in the public sector earn, on average, 94 cents for every dollar men earn. This difference adds up to $8200 each year.

While modest advances in gender equality across the board is encouraging news and many employers should be celebrating progress, there is more work to do to ensure Australian workplaces are truly gender-equal. 

In its Employer Statement for 2026, the Department of Education affirmed its “ongoing commitment to gender equality which includes fostering a workplace where all employees are recognised and rewarded fairly ensuring equal pay for equal work – regardless of gender”.

The Department’s total breakdown of employees is 69.4 per cent women, 30.6 per cent men, and 0.5 per cent using a different term and as at December 31, 2025, its average base salary gender pay gap, it said, was 1.5 per cent – which is 2.9 per cent lower than the Australian Public Service (APS) overall and 1.3 per cent lower than the Commonwealth Public Sector (CPS).

In the report, the Department said it is committed to achieving gender equality, which includes continuing to conduct an annual pay gap analysis to monitor its commitment towards pay equality, as well as a review of its commitment towards its six Gender Equality Indicators, affirmative action in relation to attraction to professional and technical roles, and targeted measures to uplift capability and improve gender-balance in all management levels.

The Gender Equality Indicators are: Gender composition of the workforce, Gender composition of governing bodies, Equal remuneration between women and men, Flexible work, Consultation with employees on issues concerning gender equality, and Sexual harassment, harassment on the ground of sex or discrimination.

In private schools, pay parity appears to be a somewhat different story.

A news article on the Herald Sun website yesterday analysed WEGA data on around 700 private schools, universities and educational institutions nationally, reflecting pay for leaders, teachers and general staff – and found that leading boys’ and coeducational schools pay their female staff more than males, while a number of key girls’ colleges pay men more. 

The Mercury newspaper in Tasmania, another NewsCorp title, on Wednesday reported that leading all-boys private schools throughout Tasmania are paying female employees significantly closer to equal than private co-ed and all girls schools, but Tasmania still lags behind the mainland.

As at December 31, 2025, the Education Department’s average base salary gender pay gap, it said, was 1.5 per cent, which is 2.9 per cent lower than the Australian Public Service overall.

Statistics there showed that men take home a higher median wage in all seven of the major private schools analysed.

WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge said while modest advances in gender equality across the board is encouraging news and many employers should be celebrating progress, there is more work to do to ensure Australian workplaces are truly gender-equal.

More than 50 per cent of employers, for example, have a gender pay gap larger than 11.2 per cent in favour of men.

There’s more women in high-paid roles (up 1pp), but men are still almost twice more likely than women to be in the upper quartile of earners on an average salary of $221,000.

On the other hand, women are 1.4 times more likely than men to be in the lowest quartile of earners (down 1pp) on an average salary of about $60,000 a year

Employers in high-paying and men-dominated industries were more likely to have the largest gaps.

“The fact that men are nearly twice as likely as women to be in the highest paid roles and that women still dominate the lowest paid roles should offer a reality check for anyone who thinks Australia has achieved equality in the workplace,” Wooldridge said.

Indeed, the 2026 Status of Women Report Card findings show Australia is at a crossroads when it came to gender equality, Ipsos public affairs head Jess Elgood says.

“For almost half of Australians we have gone far enough with men particularly likely to feel this, but there is simultaneously a recognition that the changes to date have improved the prospects for young Australian women,” she said.

“This is an endorsement of the changes towards equality that have been undertaken so far, but also a suggestion that these changes are challenging the role of Australian men.”

Women’s workforce participation has reached a record yearly average of 63.1 per cent in 2025, with more women stepping into leadership roles and accessing education.

More than 55 per cent of families are relying on paid care for children under five years old, with one in three families relying on grandparent care.

Access to health care is improving, with more than 300,000 women able to access cheaper contraceptives and 71,000 women accessing menopause assessments added to Medicare in 2025.

(with AAP)