Five years since the commencement of the Gender Equality Act 2020, there is measurable progress in some areas of workplace gender equality across the Victorian public sector. There are also areas where change has stalled.
For the first time, Victoria has longitudinal, sector-wide data tracking whether public sector organisations are making measurable progress on workplace gender equality over time. This report draws on workplace gender audits submitted by around 300 duty holders in 2021, 2023 and 2025 – the most comprehensive public sector workplace gender equality dataset in Australia. The transparency and accountability this creates is a significant reform in its own right.
The clearest progress is in some of the areas that have historically been hardest to shift. Women’s representation in senior leadership increased. More women were working in traditionally men-concentrated occupations and industries. Men’s uptake of parental leave improved in several industries, and men’s use of flexible work increased more than women’s.
Some of the strongest improvements occurred in traditionally male-concentrated sectors – a sign that structural and cultural barriers, while entrenched, are not immovable. But progress is neither consistent nor fast enough. Sexual harassment remained too common and increased for some groups. Despite some good progress within many organisations and most industries, the gender pay gap has not narrowed at the sector level since 2021. And gendered segregation continued to shape who does what work, and how it is valued and paid. These findings give duty holders, policymakers, peak bodies and advocates a strong, shared evidence base for action.
For the first time, the Commission has established benchmarks for each measure representing the state that would be expected if gender equality was achieved. The assessments of progress in this report are not intended to compare Victoria with other national or international jurisdictions. Instead, they assess Victoria’s performance against those benchmarks. The Commissioner does not expect progress to occur at the same pace across every measure. Some measures relate to deeply engrained structural inequalities which will take time and sustained effort to rectify. Nevertheless, the Commissioner expects organisations to demonstrate reasonable and material progress over time.
What's changed
More women were working in senior leadership in 2025. Women’s share of senior leader roles increased across the sector between 2021 and 2025, bringing gender composition in leadership closer to the overall make-up of the public sector workforce. Four of 11 industries reached proportional representation of women in leadership, up from 2 in 2023.
Pay gaps narrowed within many organisations, including in traditionally men-concentrated industries and occupations. These included police and emergency services, water and land management, labouring roles, machinery operators and drivers, and technicians and trades. This suggests some organisations are beginning to address the structural drivers of inequality, including occupational gendered segregation and access to higher-paid roles.
More men took up flexible work and parental leave in parts of the sector. Men’s uptake of flexible work increased more than women’s, narrowing the gap. Men’s parental leave increased in 7 of 11 industries, with the largest gains in community and cultural services, water and land management, and universities.
More women were working in traditionally men-concentrated occupations and industries in 2025 – including as labourers, machinery operators and drivers, and technicians and trades workers, and across transport, finance and insurance. Transport moved from ‘highly’ to moderately’ men-concentrated, reflecting gradual but real workforce diversification.
Governing bodies remained gender balanced across the sector – the result of more than a decade of sustained effort and clear targets.
Where more attention is needed
The sector-wide gender pay gap has not narrowed since 2021, but the headline figure masks real movement beneath it. Organisations that reported in both 2021 and 2025 improved on average, and gender pay gaps narrowed across many industries. The 2025 sector-level pay gap reflects broader reporting coverage and where women and men sit across different industries and pay bands, rather than a decline in pay equity.
Every industry still had a pay gap in favour of men. Gender pay gaps were wider in the women-concentrated health care industry, and in occupations such as community and personal service, and clerical and administrative work. Indicative pay gaps were widest of all between First Nations women and non-Indigenous men.
The senior leadership pay gap is also concerning. While women’s representation in senior leadership grew between 2023 and 2025, the senior leader pay gap widened. A range of factors influenced this shift, including women executives being clustered in lower-paying roles and industries.
Sexual harassment persisted and rose between 2021 and 2025 for some groups. Across the sector, experience rates have barely moved since 2021. They sit around 6.4% for women and 3.5% for men. They were highest, and increased more, for non-binary and gender-diverse people, whose experience rate climbed from 12.7% in 2021 to 16.9% in 2025. Experience rates also remained high for First Nations women, young women and women with disability. This shows why it is so important to consider how intersecting forms of inequality can place some groups at greater risk. The high rate of sexual harassment across the sector is a work health and safety issue, and organisations have a positive duty under law to prevent, report and respond to it.
The division of care remains deeply unequal. Despite gains in several industries, the average length of parental leave taken by men fell at the sector level, while women’s rose – widening the gap. For every 5 weeks of parental leave women took in 2025, men took around one week. Supporting more men to work flexibly, and take leave, advances gender equality by helping to share unpaid care more evenly. This is why men’s uptake of parental leave is becoming a regulatory priority.
Gender-diverse employees face the biggest barriers. More than half of gender-diverse survey respondents reported barriers to career advancement – more than twice the rate of men – and the picture worsened, rather than improved, since 2021. These employees also reported lower satisfaction with career advancement than any other group and the least confidence that recruitment processes were fair.
Where better data is needed
This report rests on the strongest public sector gender equality workforce dataset in Australia. Its limits matter as much as its findings, and two stand out.
The first is on sexual harassment. Across the sector, far fewer incidents were formally recorded in workforce reporting than employees described experiencing and reporting in anonymous surveys. This tells us something important. In many workplaces, sexual harassment is happening but staying invisible to the systems meant to address it. Disclosures made to a manager are not always documented, escalated or captured in reporting. This means that senior leaders can be working from an incomplete picture, and people who come forward may not get the support or follow-up they deserve.
Closing this gap is a duty holder responsibility. Organisations have an obligation to design, maintain and actively monitor safe workplaces and reporting processes. They cannot rely on individuals to speak up or change their behaviour.
Organisations can read their anonymous survey data and their formal reporting data together. Employee experience surveys show how common sexual harassment is and how many people say they have reported it. Formal workforce reporting data shows whether response systems are working. A large gap between the two is itself a signal worth acting on. The Commissioner expects duty holders to treat this with the same rigour they apply to any other significant work health and safety risk.
The second limit relates to demographic data that is used to understand intersecting inequalities. Only a small number of duty holders report reliable demographic data beyond gender and age. Much of this report’s intersectional analysis relies on anonymous survey responses and is confined to gender pay gaps and sexual harassment. Even so, the patterns are clear. First Nations women, culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) women, women with disability, and queer and gender-diverse people experience compounded disadvantage. Better demographic data collection across the sector is needed to ensure these experiences are visible – and that organisations can use the data to take action. This is one of the clearest opportunities to strengthen the evidence base in the next reporting cycle.
What this means for duty holders
These findings reinforce that meaningful progress requires more than policy commitments alone. Continued measurement, transparency, action, and accountability will be essential to sustain momentum and deliver meaningful long-term change.
Duty holders under the Gender Equality Act must continue to use workforce data to understand where barriers persist and target action where inequalities are most pronounced. They must also continue to close gaps in their data, especially in relation to demographic data beyond gender and age. This can help reveal intersecting inequalities.
The Commissioner remains focused on the workplace inequalities that cause the greatest harm and where meaningful change is both necessary and achievable. This includes:
- workplace sexual harassment prevention and response
- closing gender pay gaps
- closing parental leave gender gaps
- meaningful use of gender impact assessments in public policies, programs and services.
The next phase of progress under the Gender Equality Act
Five years after the commencement of the Gender Equality Act, Victoria has established the most comprehensive evidence base on public sector workplace gender equality in the country. The Act has strengthened transparency and accountability across the public sector. This enables progress to be measured consistently over time and provides organisations with clearer evidence about where effort is most needed.
This report marks an important point in the Act’s implementation. The first 5 years established the foundations for change through measurement, reporting and accountability. The next phase should be characterised by organisations using this evidence to target effort where it will have the greatest impact and accelerate meaningful progress.
That progress is unlikely to occur evenly across every workplace gender equality indicator. Some inequalities can respond relatively quickly to organisational action. Others reflect longstanding workforce structures and social norms that will require sustained leadership and commitment over many years. The pace of change may also be influenced by broader workforce and economic conditions, including fiscal constraints, technological transformation and public sector reform.
These realities should not diminish ambition. Rather, they reinforce the importance of maintaining a long-term focus on evidence, accountability and continuous improvement. By doing so, Victoria’s public sector can continue to lead by example in building workplaces that are fair, safe and equitable for everyone.
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