I. Introduction
Are women progressing to leadership roles in the wine industry? This becomes an important question for academics, businesses, and policymakers alike as much of the developed world advocates for greater participation of women in the workplace—particularly in top or leadership roles (Galbreath, Reference Galbreath2015; Hunt et al., Reference Hunt, Dixon-Fyle, Huber, Martínez Márquez, Prince and Thomas2023; The Economist, 2024). So much interest in the issue has recently led Wine Australia—the federal statutory body overseeing the wine industry—to study the gender equality landscape within the country (Wine Australia, 2023).
Though only a limited number of studies on the gender equality landscape in the wine industry exist, there are some upon which we can build. A Californian study found that around 14% of those in the vital winemaking role are women (Gilbert and Gilbert, Reference Gilbert and Gilbert2015), and another study showed that around 38.1% of all leadership roles in the Californian wine industry are held by women (Insel and Hoepfner, Reference Insel and Hoepfner2018). However, Insel and Hoepfner (Reference Insel and Hoepfner2018) also show that the percentage of women in these roles tends to decline as wineries become larger. When examining leadership roles in Australia, Galbreath (Reference Galbreath2015) found that women comprise 13% of CEO roles in the wine industry. Such results suggest far less equality in the studied roles, and Wine Australia's (2023) recent call to examine the gender landscape brings continued attention and focus to the issue.
Our study contributes to the literature in two important ways. First, previous studies are outdated (Galbreath, Reference Galbreath2015; Gilbert and Gilbert, Reference Gilbert and Gilbert2015). Many factors have changed since the publication of earlier studies in terms of gender focus across the workforce, including within the wine industry. Without more recent evidence, important insight into the issue of gender equality—and the advancement of women in the wine industry—is missing. To address this gap, we use Australian data from 2021 to 2023 and compare it with data from 2007 to 2013 while considering women in CEO, winemaking, viticulturist, and marketing roles.
Second, we include an extended perspective to further our comparative research. The focus and attention on the advancement of women in leadership roles is not limited to Australia or the wine industry. Drawing on the World Bank's Gender Data Portal, we examine data on women in the top five wine-producing countries in middle and senior management roles. In this way, a broader, comparative understanding of how women in the wine industry are advancing to leadership roles is put forth. To provide greater context, we compare women in CEO and other key management roles across various industries in Australia. Relying on data from the Australian Government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), insight is provided at a more localized level.
II. Background
2.1. Women in the wine industry
The wine industry has been described as patriarchal and masculine (Alonso et al., Reference Alonso, Kok and Galbreath2021; Bryant and Garnham, Reference Bryant and Garnham2014; Galbreath, Reference Galbreath2015; Gallais and Livat, Reference Gallais and Livat2024). According to Bryant and Garnham (Reference Bryant and Garnham2014), when considering a discursive inscription of the “ideal body,” women's representation as weak bodies, reproducing bodies, and homebodies reveal ways in which they have not been afforded the same opportunities as men due to masculine norms for “working bodies” in the wine industry. Similarly, Alonso et al. (Reference Alonso, Kok and Galbreath2021) found that women face many barriers in the wine industry, including a lack of equal pay, lack of recognition for their work, and male-dominated roles. However, they also found that some women appear to be making more inroads into leadership roles, demonstrating that resilience, determination, specialized education and skills, and hard work are keys to advancement. Generally, though, the evidence for gender equality in leadership roles in the wine industry appears to be weak.
Although their article is somewhat dated, Gilbert and Gilbert (Reference Gilbert and Gilbert2015) used data from Wine Spectator's California Wine to compare 1999 and 2014 for the same 480 firms. They found that the number of women in the winemaking role increased from 10% to 14%. However, the percentage of women in the winemaking role varied depending on the region (e.g., Sonoma/Marin and Napa had the highest percentages). Similarly, Insel and Hoepfner (Reference Insel and Hoepfner2018) drew on a sample of 219 Californian wineries and showed that while women represented 38.1% of all leadership roles, they were over-represented in staff roles such as human resources and marketing and underrepresented in line management roles such as viticulture, winemaking, COO, or CEO roles.
In another now-dated study covering 2,394 wineries (averaged) in Australia over the period of 2007–2013, Galbreath (Reference Galbreath2015) found that women in CEO, winemaking, viticulturist, and marketing roles comprised 13%, 9%, 10%, and 54%, respectively. Like Gilbert and Gilbert (Reference Gilbert and Gilbert2015), the study also found that women's representation in the winemaking role varied depending on the region or state (e.g., Tasmania had the highest representation rate). Apart from the marketing role, both studies showed significant inequality for women in the remaining roles. Unfortunately, these findings are now more than 10 years old and, therefore, limited in their current insight and knowledge.
2.2. Wine industry in context
Further to the study by Galbreath (Reference Galbreath2015), given our Australian context, there is the question about the extent to which women are progressing to leadership roles in the wine industry relative to global comparisons—and even on an industry basis.Footnote 1 For example, at the global level, evidence suggests that in large, publicly listed firms worldwide, only around 6% of CEOs are women (Altrata, 2023). Similarly, although in a national context, in one of the most important contributors to Australian GDP—mining and resources industries—WGEA data show that 8% of CEOs were women over the 2022–2023 reporting period, while other executives and general managers were 23% women. Such evidence suggests that the progression of women to leadership positions could be related to the type of role (if not industry), and this is something we investigate.
III. Methods
First, to facilitate comparisons, we were able to secure the original dataset from the Galbreath (Reference Galbreath2015) study. For updates, following Galbreath (Reference Galbreath2015), data were sourced from Winetitles, an Australian media firm delivering wine industry publications, that focus on news, views, and research and development. Winetitles has published The Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Directory, which has been available for 40 years and is updated annually. The Directory covers all Australian wineries and is one of the most trusted sources of information on wine producers. For this study, Winetitles provided special-order Excel file databases that included information from the Directory and several other fields and details not listed elsewhere, such as personnel titles (roles) and accompanying names of individuals in those roles. The years covered are 2021–2023. These data were merged with those covering the 2007–2013 period in the Galbreath study (Galbreath, Reference Galbreath2015). The number of firms and observations varies depending on the role and whether data were reported to Winetitles each year. These are displayed in the tables in the Findings section.
Galbreath's (Reference Galbreath2015) study method was strictly followed to maintain consistency. The leadership roles of interest include CEO (or equivalent), winemaker, viticulturist, and marketing.Footnote 2 To capture diversity, if the names in each of the roles were women's names, they were coded 1, 0 otherwise. If names could be considered applicable to both a man and a woman (e.g., Chris, Jamie, Kim, Sam, Sandy), winery websites were consulted, or research via a search engine was conducted until clarification was achieved. Each role for each winery in each year was sighted manually and coded for analysis. To test the differences between the periods, an indicator variable was created that takes the value of 1 if the data come from 2021 to 2023 and 0 if the data come from 2007 to 2013.
In addition to gender in leadership roles and time periods, the data contain information on the winery's location. Location is an indicator variable for each region including New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. Other variables captured include winery age, winery size, and export orientation. For winery age, the year the winery was established was subtracted from the current year of the data.Footnote 2 For winery size, the annual grape tonnage range of production is a categorical variable, where 1 = 99 or fewer tons, 2 = 100–999 tons, 3 = 1,000-4,999 tons, 4 = 5,000–19,999 tons, and 5 = 20,000 or above tons.Footnote 3 Export orientation is also a categorical variable where wineries are coded based on the percentage of sales for export markets, where 1 = do not export, 2 = 1%–25%, 3 = 26%–50%, 4 = 51%–75%, and 5 = 76%–100%. Data for all these variables were collected from the Winetitles databases and supplemented by firm websites (where applicable).
IV. Findings
Descriptive statistics are provided in Table 1. The means (%)/standard deviations show differences between the time periods for the CEO (12.7/0.325 vs 33.7/0.492), winemaker (8.8/0.286 vs 16.7/0.378), viticulturist (10.0/0.287 vs 21.5/0.431), and marketing (53.5/0.500 vs 58.4/0.494) roles. The descriptive statistics also suggest that for the two time periods, the size of wineries remained relatively stable, with most producing less than 999 tons of grapes annually. We also speculate that the decline in exports is likely a reflection of Chinese tariffs imposed on Australian wine, which negatively impacted the industry during the second period of study.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics
Notes: NSW = New South Wales; QLD = Queensland; SA = South Australia; TAS = Tasmania; VIC = Victoria; and WA = Western Australia. Winery size (annual grape tonnage): 1 = 99 or fewer tons, 2 = 100–999 tons, 3 = 1,000–4,999 tons, 4 = 5,000–19,999 tons, and 5 = 20,000 or above tons. Export percentage (of sales): 1 = do not export, 2 = 1%–25%, 3 = 26%–50%, 4 = 51%–75%, and 5 = 76%–100%. We also note that wine exports were down over the 2021–2023 period.
The main conclusion is that there is an observable increase of women in leadership roles in the 2021–2023 period compared to the 2007–2013 period. However, we first considered national comparisons to explore our research question more fully. Specifically, we chose to compare our results from Australia with those of five of the world's top wine-producing nations, including Italy, France, Spain, the United States, and Chile. For this comparison, we relied on data from the World Bank's Gender Data Portal, and we considered the percentage of women in senior and middle management roles in each nation over 23 years (2000–2023).
As shown in Figure 1, since around 2010, Australia has demonstrated a steady increase in women in senior and middle management roles across all industries. Interestingly, Chile demonstrated a strong representation of women in senior and middle management roles up to around 2010 but then experienced a steady decline. The United States leads, while Italy lags behind the other nations in the sample. In Australia, nearly 40% of senior and middle managers were women by 2023. By comparison, in the Australian wine industry, over the 2021–2023 period, women CEOs stood at 34%, women winemakers stood at 17%, women viticulturists stood at 22%, and women marketers stood at 58%. At first glance, except for the marketing role, the findings suggest that women in the wine industry are not as prominent in senior or middle management roles relative to Australia as a whole (or even other nations such as the United States or France relative to overall senior and middle management roles). However, findings are likely influenced by the type of role and industry.
Figure 1. Select national comparisons of women in senior and middle management roles.
To more granularly explore women in the wine industry in Australia, we leveraged data from WGEA over the 2021–2023 period to match our dataset. The WGEA methodology includes women in a variety of roles. We relied on reporting for women in CEO, other executive and general manager, key management, and senior manager roles. Non-CEO executives and general management members have roles that are responsible for department or business unit decisions. Key management includes roles with the authority and responsibility for planning, directing, and controlling the activities of an entity, directly or indirectly. Senior management includes roles that are responsible for one or more functions, departments, or outcomes for an entity. In this way, we have a relatively good base of comparative data with the roles included in the wine industry sample.
Comparative industry role data are presented in Table 2. Women in the CEO role across all industries in Australia are around 16% for the reporting period, whereas in the wine industry it is 34%. However, the difference is much more pronounced relative to the agriculture, forestry, and fishing industries (wine is considered part of agriculture). Specifically, women in the CEO role in these industries are around 1% compared to 34% in the wine industry. One reason for this large disparity could be that WGEA only collects data from firms with over 100 employees, whereas most wineries in our sample have fewer than 100 employees. Evidence suggests that women may struggle to obtain a CEO role in larger firms (Altrata, 2023).
Table 2. Comparison of women in leadership roles across Australian industries (2021–2023)
Note: For the wine industry, woman CEO = 34%, woman winemaker = 17%, woman viticulturist = 22%, and woman marketer = 58%
When comparing outside of the CEO role, the largest representation of women in the wine industry in Australia is in the marketing role at 58%. While this suggests an overrepresentation of women in this role, other roles do not fare as well. Women in the winemaking and viticulturist roles stand at 17% and 22%, respectively. Compared to executive and general manager, key management, and senior manager roles across all industries in Australia (Table 2), these percentages are well below the averages. Furthermore, compared to the agriculture, forestry, and fishing industries, women in the viticulturist role are relatively at par (22% vs 24% across the averages of non-CEO executive and general manager, key management, and senior manager roles). In comparison, women in the winemaking role are underrepresented (17% vs 24% across the averages of non-CEO executive and general manager, key management, and senior manager roles).
In addition to broader comparisons, we also wanted to compare results within the wine industry across the two time periods. As noted, descriptive statistics demonstrate an observable increase in all the roles (Table 1). However, we go a step further through statistical comparisons. To do so, we used logistic regression models. In these analyses, we regressed the gender role variables on the period indicator variable for 2007–2013 and 2021–2023. Following Galbreath (Reference Galbreath2015), we included winery age, winery size, export orientation, and location as control variables to account for their potentially confounding effects. We also included winery random effects to account for the repeated observations of wineries. Table 3 presents the results of these analyses.
Table 3. Comparison test of the increase in each role between the two time periods
Notes: Robust standard errors clustered on firms in parentheses. NSW = New South Wales, QLD = Queensland, TAS = Tasmania, VIC = Victoria, WA = Western Australia.
+ p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
As can be seen in Model 1 (Table 3), the period variable has a positive and significant effect (β = 4.235, p < 0.001), indicating that there are significantly more women in the CEO role in the 2021–2023 period when compared to the 2007–2013 period. Similarly, Model 2 (Table 3) shows that the period variable has a positive and significant effect (β = 1.585, p < 0.001), which suggests that there are also significantly more women in the winemaker role in the 2021-2023 period when compared to the 2007–2013 period. This tendency also holds true for women in the viticulturist role, as can be seen in Model 3 (Table 3), where the period variable has a positive and significant effect (β = 2.507, p < 0.001). The finding indicates that there are significantly more women in the viticulturist role in the 2021–2023 period when compared to the 2007–2013 period. However, Model 4 (Table 3) indicates that, for the marketing role, there is no significant effect of the period variable (β = 1.389, n.s.). Model 4 also does not fit the data well, as indicated by the insignificant Wald χ2 statistic. This finding suggests that there is not a statistically significant increase of women in the marketing role when comparing the two periods.
Finally, there appears to be some debate as to whether a woman in a given role is conditional upon a woman being in other roles, or else whether they are advantaged in taking up a new role when a woman previously held that role (Galbreath, Reference Galbreath2015; Gilbert and Gilbert, Reference Gilbert and Gilbert2015). To test for such a possibility, we followed Galbreath (Reference Galbreath2015) by determining if women in winemaker, viticulturist, and marketing roles are conditional upon a woman being in the CEO role. We also tested if this conditional probability has changed between the two time periods under study. The results are presented in Table 4 (because the marketing model did not fit the data well or demonstrate significance, results are omitted).
Table 4. Conditional probability of women in other roles given a woman in the CEO role
Notes: Robust standard errors clustered on firm in parentheses. NSW = New South Wales, QLD = Queensland, TAS = Tasmania, VIC = Victoria, WA = Western Australia. The marketing model did not fit the data well, and was insignificant, so results are omitted.
+ p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
The dependent variables in the models presented in Table 4 are binary gender role variables. In Model 1, the dependent variable takes the value of 1 if the winemaker is a woman, 0 otherwise, and in Model 2, the dependent variable takes the value of 1 if the viticulturist is a woman, 0 otherwise. The independent variables of interest in the models are the CEO gender (1 if the CEO is a woman, 0 otherwise), the time period indicator (1 if the data come from 2021 to 2023, 0 otherwise), and the interaction of these two variables. In these models, we also include the winery age, winery size, export orientation, and location as control variables, as well as winery random effects.
In both models, there is a significantly higher probability of women being in the winemaker and viticulturist roles when a woman is in the CEO role. Specifically, wineries with women CEOs are 12.1 times more likely to have a woman in the winemaker role (β = 2.495, p < 0.001) and 21.9 times more likely to have a woman in the viticulturist role (β = 3.088, p < 0.001), relative to those with men in CEO roles. In line with the findings presented above, there is also a strong period effect: in the 2021–2023 period, the odds of having women in these roles increases significantly, with coefficients of 1.282 (p < 0.001) for winemakers and 2.416 (p < 0.001) for viticulturists. This corresponds to an increase in odds by factors of approximately 3.6 times and 11.2 times, respectively.
As for the two periods, the interaction terms indicate that the influence of CEO gender on the gender composition of winemakers’ and viticulturists’ roles has weakened over time. For winemakers, the interaction coefficient is –0.775 (p = 0.080), suggesting a reduced effect of the impact of a woman CEO in the later period, although this result is only marginally significant. For viticulturists, the interaction is larger and statistically significant (β = –1.583, p = 0.006), indicating a substantial decline in the CEO female gender effect over time for the viticulturist role. Together, these results imply that women in the CEO role and the recent time period each independently increase the likelihood of the representation of women in the winemaker and the viticulturist roles. However, the conditional probability of women CEOs increasing the representation of women in the winemaker and viticulturist roles has decreased over time.
V. Concluding remarks
At a time when there is an increasing focus on women in the workplace and gender equality, particularly in senior or leadership roles, research on women in the wine industry is scarce (cf. Gallais and Livat, Reference Gallais and Livat2024). Our study takes a step forward by comparing women in leadership roles in the Australian wine industry across two time periods and by comparing global findings across all industries in Australia. We found that the percentage of women in CEO, winemaking, and viticulturist roles has increased significantly in Australia since 2007–2013 (compared to 2021–2023), and that while women are more likely to hold winemaking and viticulturist roles when there is a woman in the CEO role, this relationship has weakened over time.
We speculate that one of the reasons for improvements in the studied roles could be due to institutional pressure. For example, the WGEA was established in 2012, and their presence and oversight could be argued to be lifting the representations rates of women in leadership roles in Australia. In addition, two industry-based professional associations are likely to be having influence. Australian Women in Wine (https://womeninwine.com.au—established in 2015) and The Fabulous Ladies’ Wine Society (https://fabulousladieswinesociety.com—established in 2012) both seek to champion the work of women in the wine industry, including addressing gender injustices and greater accountability for gender equality (Women in Wine, 2023). The media—as a powerful institution that shapes the perception of reality in society—also appears to be increasing their attention. For example, articles and stories on Australian women in the wine industry have increased by 91% since 2013.Footnote 4 When institutional influence and pressure increases, theorists argue that this shapes societal norms and expectations around organizational practices (DiMaggio and Powell, Reference DiMaggio and Powell1983; Matten and Moon, Reference Matten and Moon2008; Scott, Reference Scott2001), such as increased appointments of women to leadership roles. However, while results within the wine industry are promising, they are mixed in the broader context.
Compared to an overall assessment of women in senior and middle management roles in the top wine-producing countries of Italy, France, Spain, the United States, and Chile, women in winemaking and viticulturist roles in the Australian wine industry appear to lag behind in representation rates in these leadership roles. Alternatively, we compared the wine industry with all industries in Australia. When considering all industries, CEOs in the wine industry are above the average rate of women in CEO roles. Outside of this most senior leadership role, women in marketing roles in the wine industry are overrepresented when compared to women in non-CEO executive, general management, senior management, and other key management roles in different industries. Yet, women in winemaking and viticulturist roles lag behind the averages of women in other leadership roles in other industries—including broader agricultural industries.
Our study is not without limitations. First, while the results offer some encouraging findings, we only studied Australia. Future studies of women in all the examined roles in other wine-producing nations are needed to achieve more robust comparative results. Second, while there is recognition that government agencies such as the WGEA in Australia are encouraging and monitoring women's equality in the workplace, further research is needed to examine what drivers underpin women's advancement to leadership roles in the wine industry—or are acting as barriers. Third, we have focused only on roles considered to be top leadership roles. Future research could study women in front-office administration roles, women who provide tastings at the cellar door, or women involved in logistics and supply chain management. Lastly, the original study covered seven years (Galbreath, Reference Galbreath2015). Although matching the seven years of data would have been ideal, we could not secure that time series, covering only three years in the current study. While three years is sufficient to avoid a single-year anomaly, future research could consider matching the years or creating an even longer time period.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the Editor and two anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments helped shape improvements in the manuscript.
Funding statement
This project was funded by Wine Australia, Project Number WAC 2401.
Competing interests
The authors declare none.
Open access
