Wage gap by gender narrowest
By Clare Fearnley
If I had to choose a core value that I identified most closely with my home country, I’d probably pick “fairness” or “egalitarianism”. The idea that everyone should have a “fair go” is embedded in the Kiwi psyche. This value links in to the contemporary concepts of inclusiveness, diversity and reducing unconscious bias. It also translates across to the engagement of women in society and the economy.
In 1893, New Zealand was the first country in the world to extend the vote to women. Today, 38% of New Zealand’s Cabinet ministers and 33% of our parliamentarians are women. We look forward to a time when there’s an even closer alignment between the make-up of the population and political representation.
We’re proud of the fact that the gender-pay gap ― the difference in the incomes of working women and men ― is only 5.6%. That’s the lowest gap in the OECD. This has been a long march. New Zealand first adopted gender-pay legislation in 1972 ― the Equal Pay Act. The New Zealand Human Rights Commission was established in 1977, with a mandate on gender issues. And the Human Rights Act was adopted in 1993, which made discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation among others, including work-place discrimination, unlawful.
Sixty-five percent of women now participate in the workforce, with a continued trend toward increased participation. In state sector organisations and corporations, 43% of board members are women. We’re working hard to encourage greater involvement of women in private sector leadership, in particular in our listed companies, where less than 20% of board members are women. We can do better.
And there are multiple reasons for striving to do better. Increased inclusiveness is a good thing in itself ― but it is also a profitable thing. Companies with more diversity on their boards perform better. Policies developed through more representative processes tend to be more effective.
New Zealand’s birthrate remains high in OECD terms (2.05 children per woman) and we have a very successful planned immigration policy. In fact, our largest city, Auckland, is in the world’s top three “mega diverse” cities, and we still have a comparatively young population. But even so, in the decades ahead, the proportion of those in paid employment versus retirees will begin to shrink. So we need our educated, working-age women to be engaged in the economy ― particularly given that New Zealand girls and women are out-performing their male counterparts educationally, from primary school through to undergraduate level. Support for those raising children, including through Working for Family tax policies and paid parental leave, all form part of the New Zealand social policy mix that support parents in their working lives ― men and women.
Last week I was happy to see that a recent international survey of the business environment for entrepreneurship ranked New Zealand as number one in the world for Women Entrepreneurs. I expect that this is related to New Zealand’s first place ranking in the recent World Bank Ease of Doing Business assessment. Good policy for entrepreneurship benefits everyone in business ― both women and men. We want everyone to get a fair go. And I’m hoping that this positive business environment will mean that we’ll see more women heading our listed companies as their entrepreneurialism delivers results.
Clare Fearnley is the ambassador of New Zealand in Korea.