The gender pay gap in New Zealand is the difference in the median hourly wages of men and women in New Zealand. In 2020 the gender pay gap is 9.5%. It is an economic indicator used to measure pay equality. The gender pay gap is an official statistic published annually by Stats NZ sourced from the Household Labour Force Survey.
Until 1960, separate pay rates for men and women doing the same work were legal in both the public and private sectors. Now there is legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in employment. The Government Service Equal Pay Act 1960 abolished gender-based pay scales in the public service and in 1972 this was extended to the private sector in the Equal Pay Act. The Human Rights Act (1993) and the Employment Relations Act 2000 prohibit sex discrimination in all aspects of employment, including pay. New Zealand is signatory to international agreements with the International Labour Organization and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women that prohibit sex discrimination in employment. By international comparisons New Zealand is moderately placed on global pay equality indexes. There is a larger difference in the pay gap between men and women from Māori and Pacific ethnicities than those with European ethnicities. Two main sources of New Zealand's gender pay gap have been suggested: women are often clustered in lower paid occupations (occupational segregation) and women are under-represented in higher-level and managerial positions.
As an economic indicator of gender inequality, a gender gap does not validate the claim of failure to ensure the principles of pay equality and equal pay for equal work. There is no standard international gender pay gap measure. The gender wage gap, published by the OECD,[1] provides international comparison. It is calculated using the median hourly wage paid to full-time male and female workers. The New Zealand gender pay gap includes part-time and full-time workers to include the approximately 30 percent of women working less than 30 paid hours per week.