Gender Balance on Australian Government Boards Report 2022-23

The Gender Balance on Australian Government Boards Report is prepared annually by the Office for Women, and reports on the Government’s performance against its gender diversity target. 

Expanded data

During the 2022-23 Financial Year, the Office for Women collected new data to understand women’s representation on individual Australian Government boards and in disaggregated Chair and Deputy Chair positions.

Individual boards

The 2022-2023 financial year was the first year where individual board data was collected and reported on to understand the representation of women at the individual board level.

As at 30 June 2023, 292 total individual boards were reported across Government. Of these boards, 230 have women holding at least 40 per cent of positions (78.7 per cent of Australian Government boards).

Of the 292 Australian Government boards, 82 (28.1 per cent) have women holding over 60 per cent of reportable positions.

Figure 3: Representation of women on individual boards as at 30 June 2023, whole-of-government level
Boards with less than 40% representation of women 62, Boards with at least 40% representation of women 148, Boards with more than 60% representation of women 82.

Disaggregated Chair and Deputy Chair data

The 2022-2023 financial year was the first year where disaggregated Chair and Deputy Chair data was collected and reported on.

As at 30 June 2023, women hold 122 of 292 reportable Chair positions, or 41.8 per cent, and 51 of 117 reportable Deputy Chair positions, or 43.6 per cent.

Figure 4: Gender balance of Chair and Deputy Chair positions (disaggregated), as at 30 June 2023
Chair positions, Men 170, Women 122, Deputy Chair positions, Men 66, Women 51.