Australia's Workplace Gender Equality Agency said it was positive to see improving employer action over the past five years.

While the base salary gender pay gap was at 16.2% and the total remuneration pay gap was 21.3%, those numbers have dropped from 17.3% and 22.4% respectively a year earlier, and are down from 19.9% and 24.7% over the past five years.

This year's total remuneration gender pay gap registered its biggest single-year drop.

The gender pay gap in mining fell to 14%, the seventh-lowest out of 19 industries.

The base salary full-time pay gap in mining was just 10.6%, down from 11.3%.

That was down from 14.7% last year and 17.2% in 2014.

The WGEA noted a rise in the number of employers analysing payroll data for pay gaps to 41.6%.

The agency noted the industry most likely to take action after completing the analysis was the mining sector, up 14.1 percentage points to 75.9%.

The mining industry also had better overall numbers for gender equality strategy and consultation, with 64.3% having a company policy on this against the average of 56.4% for all industries.

The sector lagged on flexible working arrangements, with 50% of mining employers offering it against 56.7% for all industries.

While 100% of the 140 miners who submitted data to the WGEA had a sexual harassment policy, only 47.1% had a strategy or policy to support victims of domestic violence.

One area the mining industry continued to lag was the proportion of women in management positions.

Mining was the third-lowest, though the proportion of women in management increased from 16.3% last year to 17.2%.

The mining sector remains the industry with the lowest number of females overall, with women making up just 16.7%.

The WGEA said when taking into account total female participation, women were not under-represented in management roles.

Gold producer St Barbara and aluminium miner Alcoa are the only two companies in the mining sector to be named as "employers of choice" by the WGEA.