A new report funded by Wine Australia has revealed an increase in the representation of the studied roles in the Australian grape and wine sector.
The report Women in the Australian Wine Sector: How have the numbers changed in CEO, winemaking, viticulture, and marketing roles since 2013? was conducted by Dr Jeremy Galbreath of Strateos Group.
The new national study compares results from 2021–2023 to Dr Galbreath’s original study assessed the gender composition of the wine sector over the period 2007–2013.
The first finding in the report is that the amount of women who have a CEO role in the industry is now 33.7 per cent, an increase of 21 per cent over the previous findings.
Women in a winemaking role are now at 16.7 per cent, an increase of 7.9 per cent over the previous findings.
Those women who have a viticulture role have also grown to 21.5 per cent, an increase of 11.5 per cent.
Finally, women in wine marketing are now at 58.4 per cent, an increase of 4.9 per cent.
Dr Galbreath said despite that the report highlights particularly strong evidence of the progression of women in CEO roles compared to the 2007–2013 averages, there is room for improvement.
“While these results are encouraging, in critical roles such as winemaking and viticulture there is room for improvement,” said Dr Galbreath.
Wine Australia with Australian Grape & Wine’s Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in Wine Committee are continuing to work to identify existing resources, gaps and opportunities to help the sector implement equity outcomes.
Moving forward, Dr Galbreath makes several recommendations to keep improving the share of roles held by women in the Australian grape and wine sector.
These include pay equality, business ownership, regional women’s networks, mentorship and ‘male champions’, data reporting graduate career pathways, and consideration of benchmarks to aim for a greater share of women in underrepresented roles.
The report can be downloaded from wineaustralia.com.