Women’s participation in mining: what can we learn from EOWA reports?

Various stakeholders associated with the mining sector have voiced concerns over current or projected skill and labour shortages that might affect output and productivity within their industry. In this context, policies that facilitate the recruitment and retention of women have been discussed as presenting an opportunity through which to address labour shortages and, in doing so, to enhance equity by improving women’s employment in Australia’s most highly paid industry. In this paper, we use information contained in company reports to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) to assess recent reported actions by the mining industry to enhance the recruitment and retention of women employees. We find considerable shortcomings in available data, coupled with little evidence of coordinated or concerted industry activity to deal with issues that might assist with promoting women’s participation in the industry.