FACTBase Bulletin 11 - Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling of Local Government? The Gender Profile of Australian Mayors in Metropolitan Australia 1985 - 2010

This FACTBase Bulletin is concerned with examining the historical trends in the gender profile of mayors in local councils within the Perth metropolitan area for the period 1985-2010.

Key Findings

• Growth of female representation in local government from 1980-2004 illustrates that nationally, growth trends seem to reach a saturation point around 30 percent.
• Female representation in the Perth metropolitan region is stuck at around 25 percent for local government mayors.
• On average from 1985-2010, Perth had the lowest proportion of female mayors at only 17 percent (13 percentage points lower than the glass ceiling).
• Perth comes first in terms of the overall proportion of councils that has had male-only mayors over the study period (1997-2010).
• On a finer scale, there has been a small number of councils within Perth that have exceeded the 30percent female representation threshold, including Melville and Gosnells.