Sharechat Logo

NZ gender pay gap unchanged in more than a decade

Tuesday 7th March 2017

Text too small?

The gap between what men and women are paid on average has barely shifted in the 14 years since the first major attempt to measure the difference was published in 2003, a new report from the Ministry for Women has found.

The report, 'Empirical Evidence of the Gender Pay Gap in New Zealand', says the gender pay gap, based on 2015 income statistics, was 12.7 percent, compared with 12.8 percent in the 2003 study, which was based on data from the late 1990s.

In fact, the main thing that's changed between then and now is that women are, on average, more highly qualified than men. The report found that "at almost all educational attainment levels, females now outstrip their male counterparts".

"For instance, the proportion of males with a bachelor's qualification or higher increased from 14.3 percent to 22.5 percent in 2015, and for females increased from 12.4 percent to 30.5 percent."

Men were more likely than women to have no qualifications, at 16.3 percent versus 14.2 percent.

Yet there was "clear evidence of a glass ceiling effect in New Zealand, with the gender pay gap increasing as we move up the wage distribution."

At the bottom end of the earnings scale, there was no measurable difference between what men and women earn, while at the top the difference ranged between 18 percent and 21 percent.

In her first major speech as Minister for Women, Paula Bennett described the results as "really disappointing" and vowed that closing the gender pay gap was among her "top priorities" in the portfolio.

The new analysis also found that only about a fifth of the pay differential could be explained by known variables, such as many women leaving the workforce to have children and therefore advancing their careers more slowly than men, with the highest paid jobs showing the least degree of explainable difference.

"The pay gap that is unexplained becomes larger and more significant as we move up the wage distribution," the report says. "For instance, at the 90th percentile, almost 100 percent of the pay gap is unexplained."

Across the whole workforce, the average hourly rate for a man came in at $29, while women averaged $25 an hour. The survey sample also found women were three times more likely to be sole parent, widowed or divorced than men, while men in 2015 were more likely to be living in households with children under the age of six.

Women were more than three times more likely than men to be working part-time.

 

BusinessDesk.co.nz



  General Finance Advertising    

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:
Your name:
Your email:
Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Related News:

SML - Synlait Milk Limited - Trading Halt of Securities
AIA - Auckland Airport announces board chair changes
AIA - Auckland Airport announces board chair changes
CEN - Tauhara commissioning progress update
FPH initiates voluntary limited recall
March 28th Morning Report
KFL Celebrates 20 Years of Excellence in Investment Mgmt.
SVR - Savor FY24 Earnings Guidance & Change in Banking Partner
NZK - NZ King Salmon Investments Limited FY24 Results
March 27th Morning Report