Pay gap for women widens

The Council of Trade Unions is dismayed by the recently released New Zealand Income Survey, which shows a widening gap in the income between men and women.

The NZ Income Survey for the June 2005 quarter, released by Statistics New Zealand, shows that pay for full time men went up approximately 6.3% since the June 2004 quarter, compared with 3.2% for women. The rates for male part time workers increased by 8%, as compared to 2.8% for women. Overall, this means that the gender pay gap has increased ? with women earning 82% on average of what men do, as compared to 86% in 2004.

"The growth in the gap is significant and is a huge concern," said Helen Kelly, Vice President of the Council of Trade Unions. "While workers will be pleased with the overall increase of 5.8% to wages and salaries since June 2004, what these figures show is that women did not get an equal share of those increases.

"The Government has set up a pay equity taskforce to address the pay gap in the state sector and these latest figures show the need to extend that work to the private sector also" said Helen Kelly.

Note: The New Zealand Income Survey (NZIS) is run annually as a supplement to the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) during the June quarter (April to June). Further information about the survey is available at:
http://www.stats.govt.nz/products-and-services/info-releases/nzis-info-releases.htm