Āputa utu Pay gaps

The gender pay gap in the Public Service has continued to decrease. As at 30 June 2026, the average salary was $108,600 for men and $102,900 for women, up 1.3% for men since 30 June 2025 and up 2.0% for women. This means the gender pay gap decreased by 0.7 percentage points to 5.2%, the lowest since measurement began in 2000.

GPG by occupation and age group(CSV, 103 KB)

Contributing to the decline in the gender pay gap is the record high female share of senior leaders, at 57.6%, and the relatively high increase in average salary in the female dominated Social, Health and Education Workers occupation group.

Analysis of the Workforce Data has generated the following insights:

• Gender pay gaps generally increase with age, starting from around zero for those aged 20 to 24, 25 to 29 and 30 to 34, and rising to 11.8% for those aged 55 to 59.
• Gender pay gaps vary greatly among departments, ranging from 20.3% at Crown Law to -5.5% at the Social Investment Agency (a negative gender pay gap means the average salary for women is higher than the average salary for men).
• Differences in the gender pay gap across departments can be affected by the extent to which departments have gender imbalances in their workforces. Occupations that are traditionally male dominated (i.e. have a high share of male employees) tend to be more highly paid than are occupations that are traditionally female dominated. For example, some traditionally male fields (such as IT) tend to be highly paid, whereas lower paid clerical and contact centre roles tend to be female dominated. This occupational segregation — women being more likely to be working in lower-paid occupations — can be a key driver of the gender pay gap.
• There can be compositional differences between the genders in terms of seniority and experience within occupational groups as well, although there is evidence that these gaps are reducing. For example, women made up 59.4% of policy roles at the advisor level in the Public Service in 2016, versus 42.1% of principal advisor positions. In the last decade this gap has disappeared, with women making up 59.3% of roles at advisor level in 2026 and 60.9% at principal advisor level. Management is another example of where these gaps are reducing. Women made up 53.9% of lower-level managers in 2016 versus 45.2% of senior managers (tiers 1-3). Over the last ten years this gap has narrowed, with women making up 58.4% of lower-level managers in 2026 and 57.6% of senior managers.

The Commission has reported the Public Service gender pay gap using average (mean) pay since 2000. This differs to Stats NZ’s approach of using median pay when reporting the gender pay gap for the entire workforce.

Measuring the gender pay gap — Stats NZ (PDF)

Median pay is the middle amount of pay earned — half of employees earn less, and half earn more. Median pay better reflects the pay a typical employee receives, which is one of the reasons Stats NZ uses median pay in its reporting across the workforce.

On the other hand, mean pay better captures the effects of employees with very low or very high pay. This is important in calculating gender pay gaps because women have historically been overrepresented in the low paid groups and underrepresented in high paid groups. The Public Service gender pay gap using mean pay is shown in the preceding section.

In 2026, the Public Service gender pay gap using median pay was 2.6%. This is down from 3.9% in 2025 and is the lowest figure since measurement began in 2000.

The gender pay gap using median pay for the entire New Zealand workforce, as reported by Stats NZ, was 5.3% in June 2026, similar to the 5.2% reported for 2025. The graph below shows:

• How the gender pay gap measured using median salaries has generally declined over time for both Public Service (down from 16.7% in 2000) and the overall New Zealand workforce (down from 14.0% in 2000).
• The gender pay gap for the overall New Zealand workforce declined at a slower rate than for the Public Service.
• The Public Service gender pay gap is below the New Zealand workforce gender pay gap.

GPG in PS and NZ(CSV, 1 KB)

Note that the Public Service gender pay gap using median pay is more volatile over time than that using mean pay. The structured nature of pay for many parts of the Public Service workforce, with large numbers of employees receiving the same pay, are driving this volatility in gender pay gaps using median pay.

The graph below shows that in the Public Service men are paid more on average than women within every ethnic group, and European employees are paid more on average than employees from other ethnic groups. This means Māori, Pacific, and other ethnic minority women can experience both gender and ethnic pay differences at the same time. Pacific women and men have the lowest average salaries in the Public Service. Overall, percentage increases this year were highest amongst Pacific women, European women, and Asian men and women.

Average salary by gender and ethnicity(CSV, 9 KB)

Ethnic pay gaps

The Māori pay gap (the difference between average pay for Māori and non-Māori employees) decreased slightly from 4.9% in 2025 to 4.8% in 2026. The 2026 Māori pay gap is the same as 2024, which was the lowest since measurement began in 2000. The Pacific pay gap decreased from 17.3% in 2025 to 16.6% in 2026, which is the equal lowest on record.  

The Asian pay gap also decreased, from 13.0% in 2025 to 12.7% in 2026. This is down from the record high of 13.8% in 2024. The Asian pay gap increased from 2021 to 2024. Contributing to the increase over this period was the with increasing number and proportion of Asian new recruits, as Asian representation in the Public Service grew strongly. 

Ethnic pay gaps trends(CSV, 2 KB)

Alongside the impact bias and discrimination has on pay gaps, both gender and ethnic pay gaps can reflect occupational segregation or the types of occupations held by a particular ethnic group. Māori, Pacific and Asian public servants are over-represented, to varying degrees, in lower-paid occupation groups.

Pay for disabled public servants

The Public Service Census 2025 found that public servants who identified as disabled had an average (mean) full-time equivalent annual salary of $103,400 compared to $107,800 for non-disabled public servants. This represents a pay gap of 4.1%. [1]

Whaikaha calculated that the overall New Zealand disability pay gap was 7.6% in the June 2024 quarter using data from Stats NZ’s Household Labour Force Survey. This pay gap was calculated using median earnings, rather than mean earnings. The disability pay gap using median salaries from the 2025 Public Service Census was 4.4% (the disabled median salary was $92,200 compared to $96,500 for non-disabled public servants).

Labour market statistics for disabled people June 2024 quarter – Whaikaha.govt.nz

The pay gaps were larger for those with mental health conditions (11.6% using mean salaries, 12.7% using median salaries) and neurodivergent conditions (8.6% using mean salaries, 8.8% using median salaries).

In the Public Service, people who identified as disabled, or those who reported having a mental health or neurodivergent conditions were less likely to be managers, which is likely to contribute to the pay gaps observed for these groups. In addition, those with mental health or neurodivergent conditions tend to be younger than other public servants and this will be contributing to their pay gaps.

More information on disabled public servants can be found on our Disability demographics page.

Demographics – Disability

The Public Service Census 2025 found that public servants who identify as part of rainbow communities (rainbow) were paid somewhat less than non-rainbow public servants, $101,200 on average (mean), compared to $108,200, resulting in a pay gap of 6.5%.[1]

However, age is a significant driver in this lower pay, with rainbow public servants tending to be notably younger than their non-rainbow colleagues. This is similar to what is seen in New Zealand’s LGBTIQ+ population overall (Stats NZ).  When salary is viewed by age group, only the youngest group (under 25 years) of rainbow employees were paid slightly lower (2.7%) than their non-rainbow colleagues. For all other age groups, the average salary is actually higher for the rainbow public servants, with this gap increasing with age.

Within the various rainbow communities, there was a fairly similar picture for public servants of another and/or multiple genders, with a pay gap of 12.6% compared with male and female colleagues, based on average salaries of $93,900 and $107,400 respectively. Again, those with another and/or multiple genders are younger on average than their colleagues and when age is taken into account, the pay gaps reduce or reverse (for example, 25 to 34 years is the most common age group for another and/or multiple genders, where the pay gap is a much smaller 3.3%).

More information on rainbow communities can be found on our Rainbow demographics page.

Demographics – Rainbow

[1] The response rate for the 2025 Public Service Census was 68%, representing the views and experiences of over 44,000 public servants. More information is available from the Public Service Census webpage.