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.

Gender gaps persist across many areas of Australian life. Although gains have been made in domains such as education, gender inequalities continue to affect economic and social outcomes. A key area for improvement is the labour market, where women engage less in paid work and continue to earn less than men. Addressing gender gaps in Australia will require a concerted and multifaceted approach.

This chapter outlines the main recommendations of the OECD Review aimed at bolstering efforts in Australia to strengthen gender considerations in policy and budget decisions and accelerate progress towards gender equality.

This chapter examines the current framework for gender mainstreaming and gender impact assessment in Australia. It offers an assessment of strengths, challenges and gaps in relation to the governance arrangements for promoting gender equality policy. It looks at the capacity of the public administration to implement new requirements related to gender impact assessment. It also provides recommendations on how these aspects could be strengthened to support the delivery of the government’s ambitious gender equality agenda.

This chapter examines the implementation of gender budgeting in Australia. It offers an assessment of strengths, challenges and gaps in relation to Australia’s strategic framework for gender budgeting, the tools of implementation and the enabling environment. It also provides recommendations on how Australia’s approach to gender budgeting can be further developed to ensure an impactful and enduring practice.