Women will have to wait another 20 years to reach parity with men in most management roles, a new report shows.
The report, released on Friday by Curtin University and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, found women are underpaid and under-represented in leadership positions.
While women now hold 37.5 per cent of full-time management positions - an increase of 1.6 per cent since 2014 - men continue to be paid more "at every level".
The report found that the highest-paid 10 per cent of women make $162,000 less annually than the highest-paid men.
Women who hold low-level managerial roles earn $31,000 less than their male counterparts.
If current growth patterns continue it will take until 2037 to see gender parity at a senior management level and 2047 at an executive level, the report found.
Female chief executives will have to wait until 2100 before achieving equal representation.
"For the top company spot of CEO, female representation is glacial and parity looks to be centuries away, with very little movement in the last five years," the report said.
WGEA director Libby Lyons said the report proved the need for employers to take action.
"Children starting primary school this year will enter a workforce where they are likely to see gender balance at most management levels. Yet they will have to live to be almost 90 to see women reach equality at the CEO level," she said in a statement.
"We must keep pushing hard to break down the barriers women still face in Australian workplaces."
Among those barriers is the lack of support for working mothers. The report found the businesses which offered paid parental leave and flexible work arrangements were more likely to retain female workers.
The report takes in data from more than 11,000 employers in Australia, capturing about 4.1 million workers.
