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Many Australian women feel their workplaces are "boys' clubs" which frustrate their ambitions for promotion and do not properly support a healthy work/life balance, new research has found.

A new Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) survey has found over a third of women left their last job because of frustrations over a lack of career progression.

A quarter of women surveyed did not feel their current employer provided them with a career path and 16 per cent did not believe they were given sufficient learning and development opportunities, the survey found.

Almost half (45 per cent) of women believed their employers did not support work/life balance and 42 per cent believed they did not have access to flexible work conditions.

A quarter of women and 21 per cent of men believed the sexes were not treated equally in their workplace, with 43 per cent of women and 46 per cent of men agreeing their workplace could be "a bit of a boys' club".

EOWA director Anna McPhee said there was a clear discrepancy between what they dubbed Generation F - women aged between 16 and 65 - wanted and expected from their workplaces and what they were actually experiencing.

"Gender biases and old-school attitudes are preventing Generation F's full participation in the workforce," Ms McPhee said.

"If women's ambition and career plans are recognised and supported they can make a major impact on Australia's productivity at a time when it is widely recognised that we need more hands on deck."

EOWA's research involved an extensive qualitative and quantitative study of more than 1,600 people, both men and women, across the country.

AAP