In brief:
- The Equal Pay Act (the Act) of 1972 made it a requirement that men and women be paid the same for the same job. No one disputes that this is fair.
- Amendments to the Act in 2020 (the “2020 Amendments”) added structure to simplify arguments being made to compare one occupation with alleged discrimination to another occupation.
- This was based on lofty ideals, but critics argue that the claims used circular reasoning: women earned less, according to arbitrary comparisons, therefore they were undervalued.
- The recent Amendments to the Act (the “2025 Amendments”) now require strong proof of systemic sex-based undervaluation within a continuous 70% female workforce.
- Previously, a historic 60% women test, at some earlier point, was all that was needed.
- Groups of men have never been allowed to make a claim, no matter how grievous the discriminatory pay might be.
- Shouldn’t it have been obvious the 2020 Amendments were going to lead to a free-for-all? Yet, they were passed unanimously, and there was no concern raised by the media either.
What does pay equity mean these days, and how has it changed?
Equal pay for the same job has been the law in New Zealand since 1972, and no one questions that concept. Pay equity goes further. Most people likely don’t realise just how far. It allows different “women’s” jobs to be compared to male-dominated jobs based on subjective traits like exertion or importance.
The differences in pay in the real world, as compared to a world of arbitrary comparisons, are often chalked up to discrimination, using what is called circular logic.
For example, a female-dominated role like caregiving could be compared to a male-dominated trade like plumbing. Admin staff were compared to engineers, librarians to transport planners, and social workers to air traffic controllers.
If the totally subjective exercise found less than full value was being paid, on a comparative basis, it could justify a raise to set the pay at the deemed correct ratio. This would generally be at the taxpayer’s expense.
The threshold to open a claim was low. 60% of the employees had to be female, at some point in the past, and arguably undervalued. No proof of actual discrimination was required – just a comparison with a male-dominated sector, which was paid more (again, arbitrarily chosen).
What changed in 2025?
The 2025 Amendments reined in this expansive regime of government intervention. Claims must now:
- Involve roles that are at least 70% female for 10 years,
- Show clear evidence of systemic sex-based undervaluation.
These changes voided 33 pending claims affecting 150,000 workers, who must now reapply under stricter rules.
Is this a walk-back of women’s rights?
Not the way some would portray it. Instead, it seems more like fixing what should have been seen as an obvious flaw that, for the most part, was being used to increase pay to more than what had resulted from the market system.
Is this cutting women’s pay, as some have suggested? Some seem to think these groups of women are being taken advantage of to lower the country’s budget. No one’s pay is going down. Instead, some women’s groups that were anticipating a raise from the 2020 Amendments just aren’t going to get them. Future government budgets have incorporated these projected raises, but now they don’t have to, since the raises are no longer expected under the revised law. That is the “saving”.
Good intentions don’t always make good law. The framework allowed emotion to overtake evidence. A role could be labelled as underpaid even if they were relatively well-paid compared to similar female-dominated roles.
It is always easy to come up with a comparator that is paid more, because it is subjective. Also, many would argue the decision makers in the employment law machinery, tasked with assessing the comparisons, tend to be very receptive.
While the law included men’s groups as the comparator group, in order to increase the pay of the women’s groups (which would inevitably include some men) it did not allow men’s groups to apply. Only female-dominated jobs could launch pay equity claims. This built-in assumption – that men’s groups could never be disadvantaged – was never seriously questioned and is still the law.
Isn’t this just identity politics with a new label?
That’s the question. If a profession was/is 60% women and its pay is lower than some male-dominated alternative, is that proof of prejudice? Or are other factors at play – like hours, physical demands, risk, or supply and demand?
Take librarians. Some complain they require multiple degrees and deep expertise, but these requirements are set by the employer itself. If librarians were paid more, cities might build fewer libraries. If qualifications were relaxed, pay expectations might fall. This is otherwise known as ‘supply and demand’ or ‘market forces’.
The market is full of majority female professions where men still apply in droves. That alone suggests the pay is reasonable. If 40% of the applicants are from outside the “disadvantaged” group, is it credible to say something is wrong with the market price? As an aside, if the women end up with more pay under a claim, then the men doing that job will too, driving costs even higher.
Who pays, and what if they can’t?
Many past claims, directly or indirectly, targeted the state, where the taxpayer picks up the bill. But the system could apply to fully private businesses. An award could destroy a company’s value or viability overnight. Is that fair? Does it protect jobs? How was the business supposed to know it was doing anything “wrong”?
The 2025 Amendments say: bring evidence, not ideology. Of course, many who are protesting the 2025 Amendments either stood to gain from the law, or “support” those who do. However, how many understand the underlying logic regarding the arbitrary comparisons and circular reasoning? In practice, the 2020 regime was less about “fairness” than about forcing state-backed pay outcomes through an arbitrary and coercive framework.
Observations not being made
If the law is truly about equal pay for work of equal value, between the sexes, then shouldn’t any underpaid group, of either gender, be able to claim? There may be very few or even no examples, but is it fair to deem there are zero and not even let males apply, especially now that evidence of actual discrimination is required? What about, for example, security guards?
Their job often involves physical risk, responsibility, and irregular hours – yet they’re often paid less than, say, librarians or dental assistants. But they can’t even apply for a pay equity claim because their occupation isn’t female-dominated.
Was there – or – is there – another pay equity law in the world so encompassing and lax as this 2020 version, which could be gamed so easily? And to be passed unanimously, by all parties, with no questions raised in the mainstream media, says something as well.
