AustralianSuper's Commitment to Gender Equality and Closing the Gender Pay Gap

31 March 2025

Achieving equality and gender pay equity is a pressing and complex challenge that we are committed to solving at AustralianSuper. While we are proud of our efforts to date, more work is needed to tackle the systemic drivers of pay inequity and overcome barriers to fair and equitable participation at work for all.

Data and transparency remain central to our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategy and we are committed to learning, improving, and sharing our progress as we work toward meaningful and lasting change.

We believe increasing women’s representation in leadership strengthens the Fund by driving better decision-making, performance and member returns while addressing structural drivers of our gender pay gap. As a Fund, we have maintained gender balance overall (51% women), on our Board (58% women) and Executive (50% women); and achieved gender balance (43% women) in Key Management Personnel this year.

We continue to make progress in reducing our gender pay gaps. As at 31 March 2024, our median total pay gap is 8.3% (+0.3% year-on-year), significantly lower than the superannuation industry midpoint of 15.7% (based on WGEA data) and our average total remuneration gap is 16.2% (-3.8% year-on-year). 

The Fund maintained its Employer of Choice for Gender Equality citation for the 14th consecutive year¹, recognising our leading policies, processes and programs that support women’s full and inclusive participation and experience at work. Key areas of focus have been: 

• Implementing recruitment shortlisting and leadership targets to increase the recruitment and progression of women in key areas
• Promoting shared caregiving and encouraging men's uptake of parental leave with leading policy provisions including paid superannuation on unpaid parental leave up to 104 weeks.
• Uplifting our external Employee Value Proposition to better attract women and diverse candidates in critical job areas
• Long-term investment in key talent programs and cultivating diverse talent pipelines
• Continuous improvement of internal processes to remove bias and increase fair and equitable outcomes through critical moments including performance, remuneration reviews, talent and succession planning
• Supporting and enabling colleague networks to embed inclusive mindset and behavioural change
• Uplifting inclusive leadership capabilities and equipping our leaders to better lead and champion DEI outcomes in their spheres of influence
• Transparent reporting of gender pay gap and DEI progress in our Annual Report for the first time.

As the largest superannuation fund in Australia², we embrace our role in leading positive change and were proud to advocate for legislative reforms that will see superannuation paid on government paid parental leave from July 2025. This is a significant step in addressing the superannuation gap that sees women retiring with significantly less superannuation than men, largely due to the unequal share of unpaid domestic and caring duties.

While we celebrate our progress, we are not complacent and understand that further work is required to eliminate pay gaps and achieve true gender equality in every aspect of our workplace.

Workforce segregation persists as a key driver of our pay gap with women underrepresented in higher-paying job areas, and overrepresented in lower-paid areas. Challenging the ingrained attitudes, biases and cultural norms that perpetuate such workforce segregation; and sustainably growing the diversity of key talent pipelines for the Fund and our industry is critical for long-term sustainable change.

This includes rethinking traditional talent pathways and supporting greater career mobility, bolstering flexible and family friendly work practices and job design, investing in inclusive leadership capabilities and continuing to embed a culture of safety, inclusion and respect at work.

Our commitment to DEI is unwavering as we seek to harness the power of diversity in helping The Fund’s 3.5 million members achieve their best financial position in retirement. Overcoming the barriers to equality takes time through long term systemic change, and we will continue to transparently report our progress and learnings to hold ourselves accountable every step of the way.