All Australian companies with more than 100 employees are required to submit data to the Australian government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

As of the end of June 2021, mining (including oil and gas) remained the least diverse industry in Australia with a female participation rate of 19.1%.

That has improved from just 15.7% at the end of FY14 and 18% for FY20.

But progress in mining has been much slower than another male-dominated industry, construction, where the proportion of females has increased from 16.2% in FY14 to 25.9% in FY21.

Mining ranked better on female CEOs (6.7% versus construction's 4.4%) and female directors (18.4% versus 17.8%), but was slightly behind construction on key management personnel (19.2% for mining versus 20.9% in construction).

The mining sector is among the best industries on gender pay gap, with 14.2% versus construction (24%) and all industries at 22.8%.

A move to sustainability reporting in recent years has improved disclosure on workforce composition, with companies including IGO, Sandfire Resources and St Barbara including gender diversity targets in their reports.

A large number of ASX miners also included gender statistics in recent financial results presentations, including BHP, Rio Tinto, South32, Fortescue Metals Group, Pilbara Minerals, St Barbara and Lynas Rare Earths.

While ASX miners have ramped up initiatives to attract women, those efforts have likely been hampered by widespread allegations of sexual harassment and assault in Western Australia last year.

Rio also released a report in February, which revealed that 21 women in its workforce reported actual or attempted rape or sexual assault, while 28.2% of women had experienced sexual harassment at work.

That culture could explain why BHP is significantly leading Rio on the proportion of females in its workforce, with BHP cracking 30% women in its workforce, compared to Rio's 21.6%.

BHP CEO Mike Henry believes the best way to tackle sexual harassment and assault is through a diverse workforce.

In 2016, BHP set an ambitious target to achieve gender balance in its workforce by the end of FY25.

While it has made progress on this target, last year the company revised down the figure to 40% women by the end of FY25.

"We know that more inclusive and diverse teams generate better, safer business performance and we've been demonstrating that for a few years," Henry told a conference last week.

In 2021, Rio had a target to increase the proportion of women in its workforce by 2%. It fell short at 1.5%, but the company said it was the largest increase in gender diversity in the company in the past five years and importantly, was evenly distributed.

Rio hired 7895 people in 2021, of which 2524, or 32%, were women.

Female senior leaders increased from 26.1% to 27.4%, while managers increased by 1.7% to 31.9%. For the first time in five years, frontline female representation increased by 0.9% to 15.1%.

Looking at the board composition of the ASX 200 miners, almost all companies have shown improvement and for the first time, all have at least one female director.

Silver Lake Resources and newer ASX 200 entrants Chalice Mining and Liontown Resources all appointed their first female directors during the year.

However, that milestone will be short-lived after it was announced AVZ Minerals and De Grey Mining would join the ASX 200 later this month.

While De Grey recently appointed its first female director, AVZ has an all-male board.

Deterra Royalties has the highest percentage of female directors at 60%, including chair Jenny Seabrook, while Lynas, led by chair Kathleen Conlon and CEO Amanda Lacaze, and FMG, led by Elizabeth Gaines have achieved board parity.

"Fortescue has long advocated the benefits of diversity and research continues to reinforce our view and experience that building a diverse workplace is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do," Gaines said.

In 2019, FMG became one of the first Australian companies to sign the Global ParityPledge, which is a commitment to interview at least one qualified woman for every executive position, and in June 2021, the company was recognised for the second consecutive year among the best companies globally for women's advancement with its inclusion in the 2021 Best Companies for Women to Advance List. It is also a White Ribbon Australia accredited workplace.

Gaines said FMG was committed to building a pipeline of aspiring female leaders via initiatives including 16 weeks paid parental leave, which saw over 99% of carers returning to work in FY21; access to paid domestic violence leave; a commitment to gender pay equity; flexible working arrangements; the operation of a Family Room at the Fortescue Centre in Perth; and ongoing support for in-home childcare in Port Hedland.

"We remain committed to building a greater pool of talent in trade roles by supporting women who are ready to pursue a career in the trades, including Fortescue's Trade Up program which provides female team members with an accredited pathway to gain a trade qualification," she said.

South32 and OZ Minerals are the other two companies which have female chairs.

On female key management personnel, Chalice leads the way with 67%, or four of six, senior managers.

BHP and OZ Minerals have an equal split of men and women on their executive committees.

Of the 29 ASX 200 mining companies, only three, Pilbara, Silver Lake and Liontown, have zero female managers.

While Pilbara has no female senior management, it experienced dramatic growth in its workforce over the December half, adding 196 new employees to take total employees to over 300.

Of the new hires, 50 - or just over a quarter - were women. It increased the company's female workforce from 21.5% in mid-2021 to 23.7% as of January.

Managing director Ken Brinsden said the company had been taking big steps forward on the diversity front.

"And we're now actually well ahead of our industry peers as it relates to the entire workforce in terms of gender diversity," he said.

"It's an important tool as the industry considers responses to things like the sexual harassment inquiry and its interplay with the fly-in, fly-out industry, which has obviously got a lot of attention in the last 12 months.

"And we've been doing everything that we can to contribute to improvements for the industry as a whole and our participation in the industry discussion and commentary and for that matter, the harassment inquiry itself."

There were six companies on last year's list with no females in their senior management ranks.

Regis Resources and Mineral Resources have rectified that since.

MinRes non-executive director Susie Corlett said the company was committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment.

"We are focused on ensuring the fundamentals for achieving gender equity are rock solid - having confidence that our work environment, practices, policies and culture and people support a wholly inclusive and safe work environment," she said.

"This includes providing entry level pathways for women into the mining industry, creating physically safe workspaces and camps, taking a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment and providing development opportunities to grow our internal pipeline of female leadership talent."

The commitment is evident in MinRes' impressive jump in female representation from 15.8% women to 19.5% in the past 12 months.

"Diversity and sexual harassment are standing items on Mineral Resources board agenda, reflecting the company's strong commitment to achieving gender equity," Corlett said.

"While we have been improving our performance year on year, we recognise there is much to be done as we continue the work towards achieving a truly diverse, safe and inclusive organisation."

On the total percentage of women in the workforce, Deterra again leads with 50%. However, without operating assets, its total workforce is 10 people.

Chalice is next with 40%, which includes 36% of the site team at Julimar, while nearly half of companies sit above the 19.1% average.

Gold miner Northern Star Resources has one of the biggest workforces outside the majors and has steadily increased its proportion of female employees.

Northern Star executive manager, people & culture Marianne Dravnieks said the company was committed to attracting and retaining the best people in challenging and competitive labour market.

"While we are proud of our performance to date, we have to attract more women to our industry to increase the talent pool available to enable Northern Star's future growth," she said.

Initiatives include a paid parental leave scheme, enhanced training, expanded engagement with universities, the launch of its TeamINC inclusive teams program and support of women in mining conferences.

"Numbers and hard targets are just one way to measure success," Dravnieks said.

"What drives us is Northern Star's vision to create a more inclusive workplace where everyone can feel safe and bring their whole selves to work."

One clear trend from our data is that companies with operations outside Australia tend to have lower percentages of female employees.

For example, two thirds of Iluka Resources' global workforce is in Sierra Leone and less than 10% of its African workforce are women. Its Australian workforce sits at 20%, just above the average.

Gold producer St Barbara's Australian workforce is 28% - with a June 30 stretch target of 35% - compared to 15% of its Papua New Guinea workforce.

The gold miner was also one of only a handful of companies to be included in Bloomberg's Gender Equality Index, scoring well above the average on sexual harassment policies, equal pay and gender pay parity and overall score.

St Barbara managing director Craig Jetson, who is a WGEA pay equity ambassador, said the company was proud to be included for a second year.

"Inclusion in the GEI matters to us because it brings transparency to gender-related practices and policies at publicly listed companies, thereby increasing the breadth of environmental, social and governance data available to investors," he said.

Source: Companies, WGEA. *Board figures are current. Some of the other data is as of the end of FY21, while some is as of the end of December/January/February. N/A denotes unavailable information or no response from the company. 

MNN's research shows there's still a lag in the ASX 300.

The standout among ASX 300 miners is Vulcan Energy Resources, which has four female directors out of a total six board members.

The other ASX 300 companies to have more than one female director are Bellevue Gold, ioneer and Aurelia Metals, as well as contractors/suppliers Perenti Global and Imdex.

None have a female chair or managing director, though Westgold has a female CEO, Debbie Fullarton, who does not sit on the board.

There are four out of the 20 which have no female board representation.

They are new gold producer Capricorn Metals, iron ore miner Mount Gibson Iron, zircon developer Australian Strategic Materials and supplier Emeco.

Emeco and Mount Gibson will be removed from the ASX 300 later this month.

Of the new additions, AVZ, Core Lithium, Firefinch, Jervois Global and Sayona Mining have no female directors. Other new entrants Syrah Resources and Lake Resources have 33.3% and 20% female board representation, respectively.

According to resources-focused executive search firm Acacia, there was 452 ASX appointments in the mining and energy space between July 1, 2021 and February 28, 2022.

Just 16%, or 72, were women. Of those, 60 were board appointments and 12 were executive appointments.

A quarter of those were first-time executive/board appointees.

Acacia director Laura Grierson said the biggest trend was the change in background of new female appointees.

"With the new energy transition, focus on decarbonisation and electrification we are seeing a rise in new areas of expertise critical to this, and in turn a real increase in different backgrounds," she said.

"Boards are asking us to find people with backgrounds in sustainability, environment, social, marketing, communications, and this trend is reflected in the appointment data as a significant change."

She added that last financial year, 5% of female appointments were in this category, but it's already reached 19.4% year-to-date in FY22.

A good proxy for the junior space is new floats. There were 104 mining IPOs in the 2021 calendar year.

Excluding large-cap listings 29Metals and NexGen Energy, each of which have two female directors each, just 18 had female directors on listing.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining was the clear standout, having achieved gender parity on its board, including chair Pauline Gately.

Tambourah Metals has a female executive chair, Rita Brooks, while 92Energy is headed up by Siobhan Lancaster.

TechGen Metals (Maja Macguire), Midas Minerals (Sara Kelly) and Pacgold (Cathy Moises) have female chairs, while Koonenberry Gold has a female CEO, Karen O'Neill.

A further three 2021 floats have appointed female directors since listing: Minerals 260, Global Lithium Resources and NickelSearch, the latter of which recently appointed Nicole Duncan as MD.

So far this year, Felix Gold listed with Dr Kylie Prendergast as MD, Killi Resources' management includes Kathryn Cutler as CEO, while ChemX Materials listed with Kristie Young as chair.

The other ASX mining/exploration companies with female MD/CEOs are Indiana Resources (which has also achieved board parity), RTG Mining, Accelerate Resources, Thor Mining, Metal Bank, Godolphin Resources, Zuleika Gold, Trigg Mining, Forrestania Resources, Koptre Metals, Hexagon Energy Materials and Peak Minerals.

The others with female chairs are AngloGold Ashanti, Vimy Resources, Tombador Iron, Grange Resources, Scorpion Minerals, Aguia Resources, Hot Chili, Globe Metals & Mining, and mining services providers Macmahon Holdings, DDH1 and Aerison Group.