The gender pay gap is an official statistic published annually by Stats NZ sourced from the Household Labour Force Survey.
[14] Research into the causes of the New Zealand gender pay gap finds that up to 80 percent is unexplained by measurable effects such as educational differences, occupation, age or family.
Sin et al. (2018) found that women on average experience a 4.4 percent decrease in hourly wages returning to work as mothers.
In 2014, it was 33rd of 142 countries in the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report rankings of wage equality for similar work.
A 2011 report by Goldman Sachs noted that female-dominated areas tend to be social services oriented, meaning that employee outputs are more difficult to measure.
The risk of undervaluation posed by occupational segregation was recognised by the UN Human Rights Council Working Group in the 2009 and 2014 Universal Periodic Review of New Zealand.
[28] In 1986, the New Zealand Clerical Workers Union brought a case under the Equal Pay Act arguing that the wages being paid to clerical workers were lower than those being paid for work of equal value, such as that of builders, and that this difference existed because over 90% of clerks were female, whereas the majority of builders were male.
[29] The application was rejected on the basis that the EPA was limited to ensuring equal pay between male and female employees within the same sector.
The ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations has criticised Farmers Trading, saying that its interpretation of the EPA failed to give legislative effect to the principle of equal remuneration.
She claimed that even though she was paid the same wage as her male colleagues, both her and their pay rate was artificially low because of the predominance of female workers in the caregiving sector.
[33] Reversing the decision in Farmers Trading, the Court of Appeal of New Zealand held that wage comparisons between female and male-dominated sectors can be made under the Equal Pay Act in order to determine whether systematic undervaluation is occurring in female-dominated occupations.
Employment lawyer John Goddard states that the EPA was widely considered to be inadequate for ensuring true pay equality, but that in light of Terranova this must now be reconsidered.
[38] In the private sector, the Human Rights Commission found in 2012 that among the top 100 companies listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, only three have female chief executives.
In September 2019, Westpac New Zealand voluntarily disclosed its 30.3% gender pay gap[42] and aimed for equal men and women in management roles.
In December 2018 the Minister for Women announced a flexible work scheme in New Zealand to reduce the gender pay gap which is supposed to be implemented by the end of 2020.
Gender Tick is an initiative from the YWCA[45] and to earn the accreditation companies must have a safe and inclusive culture, flexible working arrangements and equal pay.