In New Zealand, the gender pay gap remains a significant issue, with the national figure sitting at 8.2% as of June 2024.
While progress has been made since 1998, when it was 16.3%, the rate of reduction has slowed, and the gap is notably higher for Māori, Pacific, ethnic, and disabled women.
In the financial services and insurance industry, the gap remains significantly higher at 29.3% as per the Ministry for Women.
In response to this persistent gap, the Ministry for Women launched a comprehensive Gender Pay Gap Toolkit in November 2024. This toolkit, designed for all organisations regardless of size or sector, provides a standardized methodology, an online calculator, a downloadable workbook, and a self-assessment questionnaire to help businesses measure, understand, and take action to close their gender pay gaps. It encourages organisations to look beyond the numbers, delve into the underlying drivers, and implement meaningful, sustained change.
Separately, recent government announcements have stirred considerable debate regarding the future of pay equity claims in New Zealand. The government has recently introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act, aiming to make the process for raising and resolving claims more "robust, workable, and sustainable."
These amendments, which were put through Parliament under urgency, discontinue all current pay equity claims, with new claims needing to meet stricter requirements. This includes raising the threshold for what constitutes a "female-dominated" workforce from 60% to 70% and requiring that this has been the case for at least 10 consecutive years.
While the government asserts these changes will reduce costs to the Crown and ensure genuine pay equity issues are addressed, unions and advocates have expressed strong opposition, arguing that the reforms will make it significantly harder for women in female-dominated professions to achieve fair pay
Many organisations continue to demonstrate commitment to closing their gender pay gaps. The Ministry for Women highlights several entities actively working in this space, including The Diversity Agenda (a collective of architecture and engineering firms), Powerco, Transpower New Zealand, Meridian Energy, MartinJenkins, Tonkin + Taylor Group, and Westpac New Zealand, who are all taking proactive steps to foster pay transparency and equity within their workplaces.
FSC Empower Women support the Toolkit as a fantastic initiative, and will be hoping to host an event to hear from the Ministry of Women on this later in the year.
