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Good practice Imported

Kia Toipoto: New Zealand's Public Service Pay Gaps Action Plan

New Zealand · Wellington · See the New Zealand profile · See the Wellington profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 26% 85/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

New Zealand's Public Service Commission runs a tripartite gender, Māori and ethnic pay-gaps action plan across core public service agencies. The gender pay gap fell from 12.2% (2018) to 6.1% (2024) as agencies published targets and audited starting salaries.

12.2% to 6.1%
Public Service gender pay gap (2018–2024)
10.7% to 5.8%
Median pay gap (2018–2023)
55.9%
Female share of senior leadership roles
Kia Toipoto: New Zealand's Public Service Pay Gaps Action Plan

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Public Service Commission Te Kawa Mataaho
Period
2018–present
Keywords
gender equality, pay equity, public sector employment

Context

Kia Toipoto (2021-24), building on a 2018 Gender Pay Gap Action Plan, is a tripartite government-union-employer plan requiring every core New Zealand Public Service agency to publish annual targets and actions on gender, Māori, Pacific and ethnic pay gaps, including auditing bias in starting salaries.

Results

The Public Service Commission reports the Public Service gender pay gap fell from 12.2% in 2018 to 6.1% in 2024, with the Ministry for Women separately tracking the median pay gap falling from 10.7% to 5.8% over 2018-2023, alongside a record 55.9% female share of senior leadership roles.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Public Service Commission Te Kawa Mataaho staff, agency HR and pay-equity leads

Conditions for success

  • requiring every core Public Service agency to publish its own annual targets and actions rather than a single central plan
  • auditing bias in starting salaries and remuneration decisions alongside leadership representation targets

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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