Increasing women in leadership roles

In addition to valuing ‘women’s work’, increasing the representation of women in leadership is critical to closing the gender pay gap. While progress has been made, vertical segregation (the concentration of women and men in different levels of responsibility or positions) remains significant across industries, with women making up only 27.4 per cent of chief executives, general managers and legislators in New South Wales.⁹⁰

For the first time in New South Wales history, the NSW Cabinet comprises 50 per cent women, with female ministers for the first time holding the Energy, Police, Regional NSW, Finance and Regional Transport portfolios.

There is, however, still work to do to achieve gender parity in leadership positions across the NSW public sector, where women comprise 44.0 per cent of senior leadership despite making up 66.3 per cent of the total workforce.⁹¹ Addressing this disparity is a focus for the NSW Government.

Gender diversity on NSW Government boards has improved. Across all government boards, women made up 47 per cent of board members as at June 2023.⁹²

In April 2022, gender diversity targets for NSW State Owned Corporations and Public Financial Corporations were introduced, requiring:

• no fewer than 40 per cent of board director positions to be filled by women on each State Owned Corporation and Public Financial Corporation board
• overall, 50 per cent of all State Owned Corporation and Public Financial Corporation board director positions combined, to be filled by women.

As at June 2023, women held 45 per cent of State Owned Corporation and Public Financial Corporation board director positions,⁹³ failing to meet our target. The gender balance on boards in the private sector is lower, with women making up 36.4 per cent of ASX 200 directorships as at June 2023.⁹⁴ While this is a significant improvement from 23.8 per cent in 2016, there is still progress to be made.⁹⁵

Chart 3.2: Percentage of female senior leaders in the NSW Public Sector