Foreword

Gender inequalities persist in all areas of social, economic, and public life. The OECD Declaration on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy adopted in November 2022 and its annexed Action Plan on Gender Equality highlight the need to enable women’s full representation and participation in public life. While women’s labour force participation rates have moved closer to men’s over the past few decades, women are still less likely to be in the workforce and often experience lower job quality across OECD countries. Women who do work are more likely to work part-time or be underemployed, and in gender-segregated, less lucrative and insecure fields. These factors contribute to substantial gender pay gaps and have large social and economic costs.

In response to persistent gender inequalities in the country, the current Australian Government has made improving gender equality one of its core priorities, recognising the potential social and economic benefits that it can bring. Central to building a whole-of-government approach to promoting gender equality will be strengthening gender considerations in policy and budget decisions. This will help target government policy and resources towards better and fairer social and economic outcomes.

This OECD Review is designed to assist the Australian Government in building a whole-of-government approach to improving gender equality. It assesses the institutional structures in place, and the recent work to reintroduce gender impact assessments and gender budgeting to support better-targeted policy and budget decisions. It sets out a series of actions to strengthen the governance framework for gender equality, drawing on the 2015 OECD Recommendation on Gender Equality in Public Life, the OECD Framework for Gender Budgeting, as well as international best practices.

The report was approved by the Committee of Senior Budget Officials on 27 November 2023 and prepared for publication by the Secretariat.