New Zealand has just proposed new reforms for gender pay gap reporting. Plans for new legislation were announced by Jan Tinetti, NZ Minister for Women. Around 900 entities with over 250 employees would be required to publicly report their gender pay gaps. This number would grow to 2,700 after 4 years as the legislation plans to extend to entities of 100 employees or greater. The increased level of public reporting is intended to increase awareness of the gender pay gap problem and lead to greater gender equality. What gets measured gets assessed.

“The reality is that women have different experiences in the workplace than men, and change is needed. Requiring companies to publish their gender pay gap will encourage them to address the drivers of those gaps and increase transparency for workers.” – Jan Tinetti, Minister for Women (see HERE.)

The most recent statistic from 2023 found the gender pay gap in New Zealand to be 8.6%. This statistic has been just above 9% for the previous 5 years but this recent change was not statistically significant.

Around 200 entities would be onboard with this proposal as they already voluntarily report their gender pay gap, some as a result of activist campaigns.

Australia and several other countries already require mandatory reporting for companies of size 100 employees or greater. Australia has also recently increased reporting requirements on the gender pay gap in a recent bill so that companies with large pay gaps can be identified. From that bill it is mandatory for companies with 100 employees or more to report their gender pay gap. Our analysis can be viewed HERE.

“We’ve made the decision to announce our plan to introduce a reporting system early in the process so we can ensure that we get wide ranging input from stakeholders to inform the design of the system before legislation outlining the system is drafted. We’ll be engaging with them [voluntarily reporting companies] to learn from their experience and establish a universal model for reporting so there is consistency and guidance for employers and workers.” – Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Associate Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety.

Next on the agenda would be to address ethnic pay disparity. According to mindthegap.nz, they looked at a household survey conducted in 2021 and found that for every dollar a non-ethnic New Zealand man earns, a Māori man earns $0.86. This number plummets further to $0.81 for Māori woman and $0.75 for Pacific women.

“The Government is also committed to exploring the inclusion of ethnicity in pay gap reporting as Māori, Pacific peoples and other ethnic groups often face the compounding impact of both gender and ethnic pay gaps. Through this next phase of consultation we’ll be able to consider the inclusion of ethnicity before legislation is drafted.” – Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Associate Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety.

If this legislation becomes implemented, New Zealand would be catching up to comparable peers like Australia, Canada, and the UK. Comparatively, New Zealand is doing alright for gender pay gap compared to Australia. Australia’s gender pay gap was found to be 13.3% in 2022, 4% higher than New Zealand.

Interestingly, Guerdon Associates’ analysis on ASX listed CEO pay shows that gender does not influence pay at the highest skill brackets. The size of the company matters more. You can read our article about it HERE.

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