IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mtu/wpaper/22_45.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pay gaps – an $18 billion a year issue

Author

Listed:
  • Dave Maré

    (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research)

Abstract

This note estimates the aggregate size of gender and ethnic pay gaps in New Zealand. The gender pay gap represents $7.6 billion per year, or 5% of wages and salaries. Gender and ethnic pay gaps combined represent $17.6 billion per year, or 11% of wages and salaries. The note also discusses recent research that identifies the contributions of gender and ethnic differences in personal and job characteristics, and points to the important role of within-firm pay gaps.

Suggested Citation

  • Dave Maré, 2022. "Pay gaps – an $18 billion a year issue," Working Papers 22_45, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtu:wpaper:22_45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://motu-www.motu.org.nz/wpapers/22_45.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Isabelle Sin & Steven Stillman & Richard Fabling, 2022. "What Drives the Gender Wage Gap? Examining the Roles of Sorting, Productivity Differences, Bargaining, and Discrimination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(4), pages 636-651, October.
    2. Gail Pacheco & Chao Li & Bill Cochrane, 2017. "Empirical evidence of the gender pay gap in NZ," Working Papers 2017-05, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    3. John Forth & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos & Alex Bryson, 2023. "The role of the workplace in ethnic wage differentials," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(2), pages 259-290, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Njoh, Ambe J. & Bigon, Liora & Ananga, Erick O. & Ayuk-Etang, Richard A., 2018. "Institutional, economic and socio-cultural factors accounting for gender-based inequalities in land title procurement in Cameroon," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 116-125.
    2. Isabelle Bouchard & Lydia Cheung & Gail Pacheco, 2021. "Evaluating the impact of 20 hours free early childhood education on mothers’ labour force participation and earnings," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(2), pages 188-202, May.
    3. Fabling Richard, 2024. "Still medalling: Productivity gets a bronze (data source)," Working Papers 24_06, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    4. Forth, John & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2022. "Earnings Discrimination in the Workplace," IZA Discussion Papers 15357, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Pham, Tho & Schaefer, Daniel & Singleton, Carl, 2024. "Unequal Hiring Wages and Their Impact on the Gender Pay Gap," IZA Discussion Papers 17285, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Isabelle Sin & Bronwyn Bruce-Brand, 2019. "Is the pay of medical specialists in New Zealand gender biased?," Working Papers 19_21, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    7. Görg, Holger & Jäkel, Ina Charlotte, 2024. "Beyond borders: Do gender norms and institutions affect female businesses?," Kiel Working Papers 2273, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. Mark Williams & Senhu Wang & Maria Koumenta, 2024. "Ethnicity disparities in job control in the United Kingdom," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 33-53, January.
    9. Phan, Van & Singleton, Carl & Bryson, Alex & Forth, John & Ritchie, Felix & Stokes, Lucy & Whittard, Damian, 2022. "Accounting for Firms in Ethnicity Wage Gaps throughout the Earnings Distribution," IZA Discussion Papers 15284, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Eva Österbacka & Tapio Räsänen, 2025. "The Importance of Self-Selection and Childcare Leave Length for Child Penalty," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 41(1), pages 1-31, December.
    11. Allan, Corey & Maré, David C. & Hyslop, Dean R., 2025. "Monopsony in the New Zealand Labour Market: First Estimates from Administrative Data," IZA Discussion Papers 17614, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. McGee, Andrew & McGee, Peter, 2023. "Gender Differences in Reservation Wages in Search Experiments," IZA Discussion Papers 16577, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Görg, Holger & Jäkel, Ina C., 2024. "Beyond Borders: Do Gender Norms and Institutions Affect Female Businesses?," IZA Discussion Papers 17123, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Camacho, Carmen & Hassan, Waleed, 2023. "The dynamics of revolution: Discrimination, social unrest and the optimal timing of revolution," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    15. Isabelle Sin & Judd Ormsby, 2019. "The settlement experience of Pacific migrants in New Zealand: Insights from LISNZ and the IDI," Working Papers 19_02, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    16. Eliane Badaoui & Eleonora Matteazzi & Vincenzo Prete, 2024. "The role of non‐base compensation in explaining the motherhood wage gap: Evidence from Italy," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 873-894, November.
    17. Isabelle Sin & Shannon Minehan & Nicholas Watson, 2022. "Effective pathways through education to good labour market outcomes for M?ori: Literature summary," Working Papers 22_05, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    18. Boza, István & Reizer, Balázs, 2024. "The Role of Flexible Wage Components in Gender Wage Difference," IZA Discussion Papers 17125, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Baier, Alexandra & Davis, Brent & Jaber-Lopez, Tarek, 2024. "Gender, choice of task, and the effect of feedback on competition: An experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    20. Abrahams, Scott, 2024. "An analysis of the gender layoff gap implied by a gender gap in wage bargaining," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender pay gap; Ethnic pay gaps;

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mtu:wpaper:22_45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maxine Watene (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/motuenz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.