New gender equality strategy to tackle unpaid work gap

Minister for Women Katy Gallagher will launch the first national gender equality strategy on Thursday.

The strategy will cover five key areas - unpaid and paid care, ending gender-based violence, economic equality and security, health, and leadership and representation.

It comes hot on the heels of new wage gap data that aired the dirty laundry of individual employers and found almost two-thirds had gender pay gaps favouring men.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency figures suggested women were still struggling to make it up the top of the employment ladder and were poorly represented in highly paid roles.

Senator Gallagher said her government understood the challenges facing women.

"Women earn less, they suffer from a motherhood penalty when they take time out of work for children, and they retire with lower superannuation balances," she said.

"We know that we don't have a gender-equal Australia."

The government will also release its annual "status of women" report card on Friday - International Women's Day.

Snippets dropped ahead of time expose the uneven split of work in the home, with women doing nine hours a week more unpaid work and care than men.

Roughly one in three women say caring for children is the main reason they are unavailable to work or take on more hours, compared to about one in 10 men.

Women are also poorly represented as leaders in ASX300 companies - making up nine per cent of CEOs.

The report will also show one in five women and one in 16 men have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.

Australian Associated Press