50 Years of the Equal Pay Act 1972

Marking 50 years of the Equal Pay Act, the Parliament Library has published their latest paper providing more information about its origins, and the impact this has had on New Zealanders in the years since.

The Equal Pay Act 1972 was enacted on 20 October, “to make provision for the removal and prevention of discrimination, based on the sex of the employees, in the rates of remuneration of males and females in paid employment”. Although equal pay already existed for employees in the public sector, private sector employers were still permitted to pay men and women at different rates for the same work.

Since it was enacted, the Act has been used to achieve pay equity as well as equal pay. In 2013, Kristine Bartlett and the Service and Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota (now E Tū ) brought a pay equity claim against TerraNova Homes and Care, an aged residential care provider. Their claim said that care and support workers were underpaid compared with other similar groups of employees. This disparity was due to historical gender-based discrimination because the workforce is predominantly female. They argued that this was in breach of the Equal Pay Act, which guaranteed equal pay for work of equal value, as well as for the same work.

Achieving pay equity is a key step in reducing New Zealand's gender pay gap. New Zealand’s national gender pay gap has been reducing over the past 25 years, but progress has slowed over the past five years. The gender pay gap has remained at nine percent since 2017, but is greater for wāhine Māori, Pacific women, ethnic and migrant women, disabled women, older women, LGBTQIA+, and solo mothers.

To read more about the Equal Pay Act, read the full research paper by the Library on the Parliament website here. You can also find the full selection of research papers that the Library has published on the Parliament website.

Share

Back to top