Source: Radio New Zealand
Many businesses were falling behind, with 40 percent never having analysed their gender pay gaps. 123rf
A new survey shows overwhelming support from New Zealanders for mandatory pay gap reporting.
The survey from STILLMindingTheGap.nz, an organisation campaigning for gender pay equality, spoke to more than 1,000 people, and found 74 percent thought medium and large employers should measure and publish their pay gaps
Yet many businesses were falling behind, with 40 percent never having analysed their gender pay gaps.
STILLMindingTheGap.nz said out of 95 percent of organisations that already held the data needed for pay gap reporting, only 43 percent had up-to-date pay gap calculations.
Organisation spokesperson Dr Jo Cribb told Morning Report the survey supported the campaign for government action to close gender and ethnic pay gaps.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a policy that has more universal support, if you include those who are neutral 84 percent of us are expecting that medium and large employers will be required to publish their pay gaps,” she said.
“Not surprisingly women are more concerned that men but interestingly if you dig into the detail for some reason Aucklanders are really keen and not again not unsurprisingly, younger workers are too.”
Dr Jo Cribb Provided
STILLMindingTheGap.nz had a members bill which would make it compulsory for businesses with more than 150 employees to report their gender pay gap.
“Should 61 MPs support it it will get its first reading,” Cribb said.
Cribb said when businesses are required to report their pay gaps publicly it drives change.
“There’s a huge groundswell out there for pay gap reporting, so that we know what our employers pay gaps are, we can make decisions, we can choose whether we buy from them we can choose whether we work with them,” she said.
“Also publishing the pay gaps has been done internationally, all of the EU nation states, 50 percent of the OECD have required medium to large businesses to publish their pay gaps and the gender pay gap as a result has dropped by 20 to 40 percent, so who wouldn’t want that.”
The gender pay gap was 5.2 percent in 2025 but was much worse for some ethnic groups – 12 percent for wāhine Māori, almost 16 percent for Pacific women and about 10 percent for Asian women,
STILLMindingTheGap.nz said.
It said the media and finance sectors had the worst record, each showing a 15 percent pay gap along with professional services. The female dominated healthcare and education sectors had
gaps of 14 percent and 13 percent respectively, while the male dominated wholesale industry also has a 14 percent gap.
Cribb said it was important to celebrate the businesses that had started publicly reporting their pay gaps.
“More than 100 businesses have voluntarily reported their pay gaps through the Mind the Gap registry and all members of Champions for Change – a collective of over 80 CEOs and Chairs from major organisations including Air New Zealand, NZ Post, NZ Rugby and Ports of Auckland – are required to publicly report their gender pay gaps.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
