How far has Australia’s wine industry come in regards to gender diversity?

A recent report conducted by Dr. Jeremy Galbreath of Strateos Group and funded by Wine Australia shows that Australia’s wine industry has made significant progress towards becoming more gender diverse despite still having “some way to go on many fronts, including the gender pay gap. 

“This research provides us with significant evidence over a 10-year period and we are grateful to Dr. Galbreath for conducting this very important research for us again,” continued Ali Laslett, Australian Grape & Wine’s Diversity and Equality in Wine Committee.

The report marks the milestone of measuring 10 years from 2013, the year the world’s first studies into gender equality in the wine industry were published. 

“The latest data indicates that the Australian grape and wine community has increased representation of women in CEO roles to 33.7 per cent, surpassing the estimated Australian average of 22 per cent,” said Galbreath.

“A decade ago, only around 13 per cent of women held CEO roles in the Australian grape and wine sector, which was on par with the average for women CEOs in Australia at that time of around 10–12 per cent.” 

The report also revealed notable increases to female representation in winemaking roles, viticultural roles and wine marketing roles. Women now represent 16.7% of Australian winemakers up from 8.8% in 2013, 21.5% of viticulturalists up from 10%, and 58.5% of wine marketers up from 53.5%. 

While the increased diversity over the past 10 years is encouraging, Galbreath notes that “in critical roles such as winemaking and viticulture there is room for improvement.”

Dr Liz Waters, General Manager - Research and Innovation at Wine Australia, agrees, stating that, even though “significant efforts have been made by many in the sector to promote the achievements of women and raise awareness of the importance of diversity, equality and inclusion in our sector… there is more that can be done and it remains an ongoing priority, as identified by the sector in consultations for the One Grape & Wine Sector Plan.”

Galbreath’s report makes several recommendations to improve gender equality in Australia’s grape and wine sector, including: pay equality, business ownership, regional women’s networks, mentorship and ‘male champions’, data reporting graduate career pathways, and consideration of benchmarks to aim for greater share of women in underrepresented roles.

For more information and to download the report, click here.