This International Women’s Day, the third annual Status of Women Report Card shows Australia is making strides to achieve gender equality, including economic equality for women and girls.

Policies introduced in this term of government are contributing to progress, including narrowing the gender pay gap and lifting wages for aged care workers and early childhood educators.

The Report Card also reflects changes made to boost women’s economic participation, such as making childcare cheaper, expanding paid parental leave (PPL) to six months, and paying superannuation on Government PPL. The 2025 report card shows:

• The national gender pay gap is 9%, down from a record high of 18.6% 10 years ago.
• Australia is ranked 24th globally for gender equality, an improvement from 26th last year and a significant improvement from 43rd in 2023.
• More than half of Australian couples use paid childcare, a significant increase of 13.2 percentage points over the last 10 years.
• Women’s workforce participation has reached a record high of 5%.
• Men are taking more parental leave – 17% of primary carer parental leave is now taken by men.
• 90% of employers have a policy or strategy to support gender equality in the workplace.

“Today’s Report Card demonstrates how important it is that this work continues – we cannot afford to slow progress," said Federal Minister for Women, Senator Katy Gallagher.

The report card is a key mechanism to check in on progress towards gender equality in Australia and supports the government’s Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality in 2024.

The Status of Women Report Card is available here.