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According to OECD data, New Zealand ranks in the best ten in terms of minimising the gender pay gap, far more equal that Australia, the USA and most northern European countries

According to OECD data, New Zealand ranks in the best ten in terms of minimising the gender pay gap, far more equal that Australia, the USA and most northern European countries
14th Mar 21, 12:46pm by David Chaston

International Women's Day focuses worldwide attention on now women are faring in society, especially economically.

The overall gains have been slow internationally. They may have even stalled during the pandemic.

But New Zealand has had women in many key positions for a long time, starting with Prime Minister Jenny Shipley in 1997 1979.

Today our Head of State, our Prime Minister, and our Chief Justice are firmly embedded in their roles. The Leader of the Opposition is female too.

So it is fair to expect New Zealand has made more progress in 'equal pay' than other nations (like Australia) who struggle with gender equality.

And we have.

(If China had been included in this chart, it would have been been between Japan and South Korea.)

We aren't "the best" in this OECD league table but we do score highly with a lower wage gap than even Sweden. In fact, it is interesting to inspect this table to see how 'poor' liberal northern European countries do on this basis (Norway and Denmark are the exceptions), busting a myth on their status in this regard. Our steady progress, and especially the April 2017 move by the the Bill English National Government gave new energy to the current round of progress.

Since the 2019 data above, New Zealand certainly has made further progress, made possible by a relatively favourable economic situation and "an ability to pay" in the public sector.

The Europeans and Americans talk a lot about this issue, but that is mainly because they have so much core work to do on the issue. The Australian's seem to ignore the issue in political discourse, and that has set up some very toxic events recently. Worse, it also appears that the strong anti-New Zealand reactions by their Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton has as a streak of deeply embedded misogynistic and antagonistic views of female leaders. Dutton survives in a Morrison Government when many talented female leaders are discarded. Progress there is in spite of Federal leadership.

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25 Comments

by  Simon  |  14th Mar 21, 1:25pm 1615681531

Everything factual about gender from a professor who actually studies this:

https://youtu.be/aMcjxSThD54 (skip first 5 mins...)

Agreeableness is not just a female trait even if more common in females. An agreeable male has all the disadvantages of an agreeable female but as they are male they cannot benefit from 'gender equality' bias eg govt departments for woman, 'woman in leadership' etc etc.

NZ is becoming toxic for intelligent introverted career driven non-maori males, if we are happy to lose this talent, then proceed.. otherwise stop being sexist racists (by definition providing different special treatment based on gender or race) , stop even 'seeing gender or race and be a place where humans are all treated equal (weird concept i know !)

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by  PonziKiwi  |  14th Mar 21, 1:45pm 1615682748

My fear is people are not driven by equality but revenge..

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by  Te Kooti  |  14th Mar 21, 6:01pm 1615698076

I don't know where the non-Maori reference comes from Simon, I can assure you that currently whatever benefit you perceive favours us is a mirage as born out by our complete absence in virtually any corporate leadership roles. I did read last week that in the UK Eton now has less than half the Oxbridge places it did 5 years ago and was overtaken by a state college in East London with a mostly Black student base. There are serious social changes happening there.

I do like Peterson though.

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by  PonziKiwi  |  14th Mar 21, 2:11pm 1615684317

Nobody is arguing equal pay for equal work. But nz is heading down a dangerous path of normalising discrimination against males.

Men's health rates are worse than women and boys educational attainment pales in comparison to girls.

Also every women I know under 35 out earns men under 35. All while complaining there are no men to marry on par financially with themselves.

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by  Zachary Smith  |  14th Mar 21, 3:21pm 1615688512

Jenny Shipley became Prime Minister on 8 December 1997 not 1979.

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by  Simon  |  14th Mar 21, 3:36pm 1615689402

Guess 52% of the population, that live longer, and work less, that never went to war or got into an average of 5 physical fights before age 15, that don't kill themselves when they feel bad (easier to blame the men for causing it) , seem to vote for their own gender #lets all gift lazy entitled woman the world

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by  Lapun  |  14th Mar 21, 7:31pm 1615703503

Check reviews of 'the better half' for an explanation as to why women are genetically superior.

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by  karl seastrand  |  14th Mar 21, 5:22pm 1615695767

New Zealand has had serious issues with equality of outcome between the sexes in a range of areas. The biggest gaps exist in the following areas.

If you are male you are more than 12 times as likely to be incarcerated than if you are female.
If you are male you are more than 8 times as likely to be arrested.
If you are arrested as a male you are more likely to be given a more serious punishment for similar offences compared to a female.
If you are male you are more than 3 times as likely to commit suicide.
If you are male you are more than 15 times as likely to die in a workplace accident.
If you are male you are more than 10 times as likely to suffer a serious workplace accident or disability.
If you are male you are 8 times more likely to be the victim of violent crime, even more of being murdered.
If you are male your life expectancy is more than two years less than if you are female. Two years less life!

I doubt that many have ever seen these statistics let alone heard any discussion of how we intend to rectify such grievous, across the board inequalities in NZ society. If we wish to move in the direction of equality of outcome (which it seems is the case) then we need to ensure that our attention is on all areas of inequality.

The contention that NZ is a patriarchal society is completely laughable. Just the simple fact that in NZ, we have created a society that, as a male, life expectancy is over two years less than for a female (not to mention the other inequities mentioned above) means if anybody is getting a raw deal it is the NZ male. But because these facts cannot be used for self-image promoting virtue signalling they are ignored. Time to get real.

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by  karl seastrand  |  14th Mar 21, 7:30pm 1615703448

Every year the WSOP Poker Main Event is held. It is open to anybody (over 21) who is prepared to pay the $10K USD entry fee. It attracts between 6000 and 10 000 entrants with an average of 4% female participants. The final table of 9 people is where the big money is played for. Based on probability there should be an average of at least one woman at the final table every three years. ONE woman has made the final table (2005) in the history of the event. Why?

Are the cards sexist? The chairs or maybe the tables are deeply rooted in sexism or unconscious bias? Of course not. There are a number of contributing reasons why women grossly underperform and clearly bias or sexism is not amongst them.
And since poker is the game or activity that most closely mirrors life, mainly due to it being a game based on decision making involving incomplete information (as is life) then if we see large and long-standing female underperformance in the completely fair and equal arena of poker we can also expect to see female underperformance (and male underperformance in other areas) in some other areas of life as well. And as with poker the reasons for this can be explained. But those explanations are just not very PC.

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by  Lapun  |  14th Mar 21, 7:44pm 1615704260

It is possible that the bell curve for the distribution of an inate talent is slightly flatter for men. If so a talent such as maths, music, chess might find more men than women succeeding and a corresponding greater number of men in prison, illiterate, mentally incapable. If true the effect must be small and easily swamped by culture and prejudice. So 100 years ago classical music had male violinists and orchestra conductors - times have changed and women have reached the top.

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by  karl seastrand  |  14th Mar 21, 8:09pm 1615705786

Lapun...they have not (unfortunately) reached the (very ) top in poker. They still seriously underperform in a game where underperformance cannot be explained away by citing possible issues of bias or sexism. The gap and underperformance has not been small and IMO will likely continue.
And yes, while not PC to say, while it is accepted that IQ for men and women is the same the bell curve for men is more pronounced at each end meaning there are more super dumb men compared to women but also more super smart men. Larry Summers, head of Harvard, was infamously fired for talking about this. He should have understood the power of the cancel culture. Summary, in more areas than not, the best men are better than the best women and poker results completely prove it.

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by  Lapun  |  14th Mar 21, 10:59pm 1615715958

6,000 is only one person in a million for the world's population - that is an elite group. I suspect your comment about bell curves is the same as mine. However the data is very noisey - hard to judge. Taking STEM subjects for example women are well prepresented in Bio-Chemistry but under represented in Maths / Physics but the average IQ for PhD students at Oxbridge is notably higher for BioChemists that physists. The hypothesis may be true but if true still rather useless. There has only been one female recipient of the Fields medal for maths; but she deserved it. Almost all great jazz musiians were men but Mary Lou Williams was great. Maybe exceptions make the rule? Certainly no reason to discriminate.

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by  Nzdan  |  14th Mar 21, 7:47pm 1615704470

Because of the gender pay gap, women find it much harder to find the $10k required for the entry fee. There should be 50% female representation in all tournaments, and to achieve this the pool of participants needs to be capped to 2x female entrants.

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by  karl seastrand  |  14th Mar 21, 8:28pm 1615706929

Nzdan..yes that is why the field is made up of only 4% females. Everything being equal they should feature at the end of the tournament 4% of the time but this just does not happen. Because of USA discrimination laws there is a WSOP event especially for ladies but they cannot advertise it as such so it is $1000 entry to all with an additional $9000 administration fee for males (who do not play because it is -EV). There are also over 50 and 60 (years old) events too and the fields are far weaker as the fact is that (on average) over 50s are not as smart as others due to brain shrinkage. Not PC but it is fact. (I am over 50).
If you had a poker tournament with 50% female entrants the males would be fighting over the remaining 50% of entries due to what is called (in gambling) massive +EV (positive expectation). Of course there are women poker players better than me but the fact is, in a game so obviously and completely free of any bias or sexism the best women just cannot even compete with the best men. I feel the reasons for this are the same as the reasons why the leaders of most of our biggest companies are men. And the reasons ain't unfair ones. But again it ain't PC to say so.

When I see a poker table containing a couple of women, a couple of drunks or people wearing expensive watches I try to get into that game. Yes, I am profiling based on assumptions but I am also increasing my odds of winning.

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by  Lapun  |  14th Mar 21, 11:00pm 1615716050

If they are top poker players they would have won their stake/entry fee easily.

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by  karl seastrand  |  15th Mar 21, 12:50pm 1615765828

Lapun.. correct, if you are good enough you can join an online poker website and take the $10 free money bonus and build it into millions of dollars. It has been done by hundreds (probably thousands) of people but very very very few (if any) are women. It is absolutely impossible to rationally claim results are even slightly impacted by bias or sexism. There are valid reasons for the huge inequality of outcome but what the reasons are and the effect each one has is opinion based. But the fact remains, women do grossly underperform on a completely provable level playing field such as poker, which certainly hints at the likelihood that they will also underperform in (some) other areas even when we ensure they are free of bias. And rather than look for the main reasons for the underperformance and inequality of outcome it is easier and more fashionable just to cry sexism and bias.
Unfortunately in most areas of life it is impossible to quantify the (possible) effects of bias on outcomes. How can you prove that sexism is not at least a contributing factor as to why there are far fewer female CEOs? You just can't. Bias might exist in the NZ corporate world but it seems far fetched to contend that it is the biggest factor. But it is taboo to say so.
When we face inequalities of outcome we need to carefully examine why these inequalities exist instead of automatically labelling the system as unfair and biased. The system may well be biased (in many cases) but I feel deeper analysis of the reasons (for inequality of outcome) will lead us to conclude that while bias does exist (in some areas of society) it is rarely the main cause of inequality of outcome. We obviously need to be concerned about bias (especially the systemic type) and take every measure possible to eliminate it but we also need to understand that there are usually much bigger contributing factors (causing inequality of outcome) that require far more of our attention.

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by  Te Kooti  |  15th Mar 21, 1:16pm 1615767360

I am struggling to draw much from your hypothesis. Perhaps women have just done the math and worked out gambling is a mugs game - which it is.

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by  karl seastrand  |  15th Mar 21, 2:00pm 1615770056

TK.. yes gambling is a mugs game for 99% of the population. One of my biggest fears is that one of my kids tries to become a professional gambler.

But the hypothesis is as follows; poker results just cannot be impacted by bias and yet on a percentage based analysis of outcome women massively underperform in terms of results. How can hundreds of women enter the main event every year and yet only one has made the final table of 9 in the history of the 50+ year event. It seems very likely (but unprovable) that the reasons for the inequality of outcome in this area are the very same reasons why there are so few women CEOs at NZX50 companies. And those reasons have little to do with bias.

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by  Withay  |  15th Mar 21, 6:50am 1615744256

What data are these conclusions drawn from? Is it high level I.e. total earnings per year or do they drill down to pay per hour accounting for experience, overtime worked, personal choices, time in workforce etc.? It’s been a while since I’ve done a deep dive into the “gender pay gap” but last time it was pretty clear it was a case of using the data that best suited ones case as opposed to a fairer in depth analysis.

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by  Zachary Smith  |  15th Mar 21, 7:00am 1615744813

We should stop defining people by gender, race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

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by  darkred  |  15th Mar 21, 12:25pm 1615764313

The comments here sound like they've been written in the 1980s.

It's an article about women, with men commenting about men.

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by  Zachary Smith  |  15th Mar 21, 8:05am 1615748722

What even is a woman?

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by  karl seastrand  |  15th Mar 21, 12:55pm 1615766102

dark..care to comment on the statistics I posted yesterday? Are you concerned about these serious and extremely wide inequalities of outcome? Didn't think so.

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by  Te Kooti  |  15th Mar 21, 1:13pm 1615767224

darkred - Did you just assume our gender?

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by  Mannering  |  15th Mar 21, 4:07pm 1615777637

There is loads of research that subsantiates the fact that in all human populations there are more geniuses and idiots amongst males than females, just as for every 100 girl babies there are about 106 or so boy babies, although by the mid 20s or so it about evens up - unless of course there is a war ..... But then, as some of my young, university educated relatives love to point out, "Men are meant to die in large numbers anyway" And of course, prostate cancer is feminism"s favourite disease as it only strikes men and the incidence I NZ is about 50% - I should know.

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