New Zealand’s gender pay gap has remained broadly unchanged at 5.3 percent, a year after recording its biggest annual fall since official records began.
New figures released by Stats NZ show the gender pay gap was 5.3 percent in the June 2026 quarter, compared with 5.2 percent in the same quarter last year.
The result means the substantial improvement recorded in 2025 has largely been maintained, but there has been no further meaningful narrowing over the past year.
“Following a 3.0 percentage point decrease last year, the gender pay gap has remained largely unchanged at 5.3 percent in the June 2026 quarter,” Stats NZ labour market spokesperson Abby Johnston said.
The latest figure remains well below the 16.2 percent recorded when the current series began in 1998.
What the 5.3% figure means
The gender pay gap is calculated by comparing median hourly wage and salary earnings for men and women.
A gap of 5.3 percent means the median hourly earnings of women are 5.3 percent lower than those of men across the workforce.
It does not mean that every woman doing the same job as a man is automatically being paid 5.3 percent less.
The national measure does not adjust for differences in occupation, industry, age, qualifications, seniority, working patterns or other characteristics that can affect earnings.
Instead, it provides a broad measure of the difference between what men and women earn across New Zealand’s labour market.
Stats NZ uses median earnings rather than an average because the median is less affected by a relatively small number of people earning exceptionally high or low incomes.
Pay gap remains near historic low
The long-term movement has been substantial.
| June quarter | Gender pay gap |
|---|---|
| 1998 | 16.2% |
| 2019 | 9.3% |
| 2024 | 8.2% |
| 2025 | 5.2% |
| 2026 | 5.3% |
The particularly large change happened between 2024 and 2025.
In the June 2025 quarter, the gap fell from 8.2 percent to 5.2 percent, a reduction of 3 percentage points in just one year.
Women’s median hourly earnings increased more strongly than men’s during that period.
That rapid movement significantly narrowed the national gap.
The latest 5.3 percent result shows those gains have not been reversed, although the improvement has effectively stalled over the past 12 months.
Pay gap sits within a difficult labour market
The pay figures also arrive during a challenging period for New Zealand workers generally.
Separate labour market figures for the June 2026 quarter showed unemployment had risen to 5.6 percent, with about 171,000 people unemployed.
The underutilisation rate, which includes people who are unemployed, underemployed or otherwise available for additional work, increased to 13.8 percent.
There was also a noticeable gender difference in underutilisation.
The rate was 15.3 percent for women compared with 12.4 percent for men.
Women’s employment rate stood at 63.1 percent, while the rate for men was 70.5 percent.
Those figures do not directly determine the gender pay gap, but they show that earnings are only one part of the difference between men’s and women’s experiences in the labour market.
Hours worked, access to employment and the types of jobs people occupy can also influence overall economic outcomes.
Why a gap can remain even with equal pay laws
One of the most important distinctions in the debate is between equal pay and the overall gender pay gap.
New Zealand law requires equal pay for men and women doing the same or substantially similar work.
The national gender pay gap is broader.
Women and men are not distributed evenly across industries and occupations.
Some sectors with large numbers of women have historically paid less than sectors dominated by men.
Women are also more likely to take time away from paid employment or reduce their hours while caring for children and other family members.
Career interruptions can affect promotions, seniority, earnings growth and retirement savings over many years.
Representation in highly paid senior and leadership roles can also influence national earnings patterns.
A national pay gap can therefore exist even where individual employers are paying men and women the same rate for the same position.
Progress has slowed
The fall from 16.2 percent in 1998 to around 5 percent today represents a significant long-term shift.
But maintaining a low gap and reducing it further are different challenges.
Some of the remaining difference may be linked to structural patterns that cannot be addressed simply by changing a salary figure.
Career progression, occupational segregation, childcare responsibilities, flexible work, parental leave and representation in senior roles can all affect earnings over time.
That means a drop from 8.2 percent to 5.2 percent in one year should not necessarily be expected to repeat annually.
The latest data shows exactly that.
After last year’s unusually large improvement, the national gender pay gap has effectively paused at around the same level.
For workers and employers, the 2026 result can therefore be read in two ways.
New Zealand has retained one of the strongest improvements seen in the series.
But a 5.3 percent difference remains, and the latest year has delivered little further progress in closing it.
The next question will be whether the gap resumes its downward trend or whether further improvements become slower and harder to achieve.
Source: Stats NZ, Labour Market Statistics, June 2026 quarter.