The lack of legislation forcing businesses to be transparent about the gender pay gap means New Zealand is falling behind other countries, an advocacy group says.
Stats NZ’s median hourly pay rate data shows women trail by 5.3 percent while a year ago the gap was 5.2 percent.
Still Minding the Gap founder Jo Cribb told Morning Report the pay gap is not due to the characteristics of women but rather the lack of legislation.
“What explains the gender pay gap in New Zealand is the decisions and pay setting that happens within firms.”
She said the EU, UK and some US states had introduced laws making businesses look at their pay gaps and ensure that they can justify them.
“We don’t have that in New Zealand and we know that at least 50 percent of businesses in New Zealand have not measured their pay gap.”
“They are not required to and the reason most give is that they don’t believe they have an issue.”
Cribb said the gap was even more significant when ethnicity is considered.
“When we break it down, the gap for Māori women is about 12 percent and for Pacific women, it’s 16 percent.”
She explained in order to get the overall gender pay gap percentage, Stats NZ breaks down how much each person in the country earns and then ranks everyone.
“Then they find out who’s in the middle and compare the difference and that’s where we find the gap… so the woman in the middle, earns less than the man in the middle.”