NSW Gender Equality Dashboard

The dashboard provides an accessible, timely source of data showing progress on key indicators of NSW women’s social and economic outcomes.

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About the dashboard

The NSW Gender Equality Dashboard is an interactive tool that makes valuable data collated by Women NSW more easily accessible to researchers, policy and decision makers and the general public.

The NSW Gender Equality Dashboard supports the work of Women NSW to conduct research and collect and publish data on key indicators of women’s equality.

Using the dashboard

Use the links on this page to access the dashboard. You can find up-to-date data on women in NSW in the areas of:

Create your own custom reports by using interactive graphs and filtered data sets to explore key topics of interest or population groups.

Demographics (Overview of women in NSW)

The Overview section of this dashboard shows some demographic information about women in NSW, including how many women there are, how old they are, and where they live. The demographics of NSW show: 

  • Over 4.1 million women live in NSW, of which over 146,000 identify as First Nations.  

  • 14.5% of women in NSW are between 30 and 39 years old, which is the largest number of women in any age bracket. 

  • Around two thirds of women in NSW live in Greater Sydney and one third in the rest of NSW. 

  • Women are on average older (40.3 years) compared to men (39.5 years).

Economic Opportunity & Advancement

The Economic Opportunity & Advancement section of this dashboard shows indicators of work and financial security which are interrelated and critical to women’s wellbeing across the course of their lives. 

The indicators relevant to this priority area show: 

  • Women’s workforce participation has steadily increased but remains below men’s participation in the workforce.

  • More women than men are working part-time.

  • Women continue to be under-represented in industries that are traditionally male-dominated. 

  • The gender pay gap continues to decrease over the years, but there remains a notable difference between earnings for men and women.

Health & Wellbeing

The Health & Wellbeing section of this dashboard shows indicators of physical and mental health, fertility and births, cancer and cancer screening and women's safety.

To achieve their physical, mental, social and economic potential, women need opportunities to be healthy at every stage of their lives. Women and their children also need to feel safe in their homes and communities and be able to access support when needed.

The indicators relevant to this priority area show:

  • Women experience more favourable physical health impacts, such as lower obesity, lower smoking and higher vegetable and fruit consumption than men.
  • In contrast, women report experiencing moderate to very high level of psychologocial distress at greater rates than men.
  • Women are choosing to have babies later in life and there is a decrease in the number of teenagers giving birth.
  • While First Nations women show improvements in breast cancer screening participation since 2011-12, there has been a significant decrease in participation for all women in recent years.

Participation & Empowerment

The Participation & Empowerment section of this dashboard shows indicators of primary and secondary education, post-school qualification, community participation and women in leadership.

For women to enjoy the full range of life opportunities, it is critical they participate fully in education and learning and are free from discrimination as they move through their lives and careers.

The indicators relevant to this priority area show:

  • Across all geographical regions and all socio-economic groups, high school completion rates for girls are consistently higher than high school completion rates for boys.
  • The rate of women's completions of apprenticeships and traineeships has been decreasing since 2013.
  • Women continue to graduate from university more often than men. However, women continue to complete degrees that are traditionally female-dominated.
  • On average, women in NSW participate in physical activities at a greater rate than men. However, this is largely driven by participation in non-sports related activities, such as bushwalking, dancing, and gym or fitness activities. In contrast, men in NSW participate in sports-related activities at a higher rate than women.
  • While we are yet to see parity, more NSW women than ever are elected representatives in both NSW and federal government.
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