Ethnic (pay) disparities in public sector leadership from 2001-2016 in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

New Zealand governments have longstanding policy commitments to equal employment practices. Little attention has been paid to ethnic pay disparities in recent years. Informed by a series of Official Information Act requests, we were interested to find out to what extent ethnic pay disparities existed at senior levels within the core public sector and district health boards (DHBs). We examined the number of employees who earned more than NZ$100,000 by determining the total full-time equivalent staff (FTEs) and the respective proportions of the three ethnicities compared- Māori, Pasifika and Other. The analyses revealed a pattern of ethnic pay disparities across the public sector over the period reviewed. There were fewer Māori and Pasifika staff employed in DHBs than their population proportion. The failure to promote Māori and Pasifika to the upper tiers of the public sector is consistent with definitions of institutional racism. The authors call for more research to understand the dynamics of ethnic pay disparity and the drivers of this disparity.