Tough economic conditions have had little impact on the pay packets of accountants according to results from the 2024 CA ANZ Remuneration Survey report, released in February 2025.

Accounting is a well-compensated profession and pay levels progress as members advance in their careers, but one key metric remains largely static: the profession’s gender pay gap.

Based on responses from 8340 members (a 41% increase in respondents from 2023), the report shows that the gender pay gap remains stubbornly wide.

In Australia the gender pay gap is 18%, which means that men overall earn $16 per hour more than women, or an extra A$29,445 in total remuneration annually.

In New Zealand, the gender pay gap is 22%, meaning men overall earn $19 per hour more than women, adding up to an extra NZ$40,850 per annum on average.

CA ANZ CEO Ainslie van Onselen says representation in senior, higher-paying roles is a key driver of the pay gap.

“For example, women hold only 23% [Australia] and 38% [New Zealand] of equity partnerships in public practice, which contributes heavily to the gender pay gap,” she says.

“There are findings in this report that show we still have a lot of work to do to create a profession where both women and men can thrive.”

Behind the gender pay gap

More than a moral issue, closing the gender pay gap may have a ripple effect across the broader economy. The World Economic Forum estimates that advancing gender parity could add US$12 trillion to global GDP and boost some countries’ economic output by as much as 35%.

The awareness of the gender pay gap among CA ANZ members is increasing, with 54% of respondents recognising its existence, compared with 45% in 2023. However, almost a quarter of members deny the existence of the gender pay gap and many confuse it with pay equality, which has been a legal requirement in both Australia and New Zealand for more than 50 years.

While equal pay is where employees are paid the same for performing the same work, or different work of equal or comparable value, the gender pay gap is the difference between earnings of women and men, expressed as a percentage of men’s pay.

Mary Wooldridge, CEO of Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), describes the gender pay gap as “a universally recognised proxy for gender equality in a workplace.”

“Equal pay is a fundamentally different measure,” she says. “The gender pay gap needs to be acknowledged for the calculation that it is, which is the average remuneration between men and women and comparing the difference.”

According to the CA ANZ report, while representation in senior, higher-paying roles is among the leading causes of the gender pay gap, 39% of members list systemic bias as a reason. Close behind, 37% identify carer responsibilities as a contributing factor. The report also shows that women (63%) experience significant career impacts from longer parental leave compared with men (35%), who usually take shorter breaks, often for travel.

The gender pay gap also widens with age. In Australia, it’s 5% for those aged 20–29 years, and 24% for those aged 40–49 years. In New Zealand the gap is -1% for those aged 20–29 years and 25% for those aged 40–49 years.

“No one will be surprised to hear that the pay gap widens significantly when members reach the life stage when they’re traditionally raising families,” says van Onselen.

Wooldridge adds that while women are more likely to be out of the workforce due to caring responsibilities, they don’t necessarily return on the same career trajectory. Data from WGEA shows men over the age of 55 are twice as likely as women to be in management roles.

“When women return to work, they might be taking part-time roles, which often have lower remuneration associated with them, or they are not progressing in their career at the same rate.”

Wooldridge notes that while bias and discrimination also drive the gender pay gap, other factors of workplace culture play an important role.

“This can particularly relate to industries like professional services, where the expectation of the ideal worker is often that they are available for clients 24/7 and that work is prioritised as number one,” she says. “Women often have competing and broader responsibilities outside of work and, as a result, their careers are often penalised.”

Closing the gap

Results of the 2024 CA ANZ Remuneration Survey show that 55% of respondents who acknowledge the gender pay gap also call for more women in senior leadership roles. Furthermore, just over half of those who acknowledge the gap list increased workplace flexibility for carers as an action firms should take to address the gender pay gap.

“The ability to work flexibly plays an important role in reaching senior leadership roles and closing the gender pay gap,” says Wooldridge.

Normalising caring responsibility for all employees may also help to close the gap, says van Onselen.

“Women tend to take more time off to care for children, and this underscores the need to empower and support men in taking time off to share caregiving duties at home.”

Actions by accounting firms such as Grant Thornton show that greater workplace flexibility for carers can be achieved. It was the first professional services firm in Australia to trial and permanently implement a nine-day fortnight with no reduction in salary. In 2024, it launched a similar trial for its New Zealand operations. In Australia, it also provides up to 26 weeks fully paid gender-neutral primary carers’ parental leave and up to four weeks paid secondary carer parental leave. Its median gender pay gap for total remuneration in Australia, which includes base salary plus overtime, bonuses and other payments, was 8% in favour of women, according to data released by WGEA in 2024.

“A cultural change across the profession may also increase women’s leadership opportunities,” says Wooldridge.

“There may be an expectation at professional services firms that if clients expect them to work long hours during the weekends or late at night, that’s just what they need to do. But companies that we have talked to in professional services – particularly those that have high proportions of women and low gender pay gaps – say they’re engaging with clients about how to meet their needs, while also reflecting the business’s values and their commitment to their employees about what’s reasonable in terms of work hours and availability.

“I think that’s unique to professional services, and it’s a really valuable conversation to have both internally and externally, because it’s often those client-facing roles that are more highly paid.”

Walking the talk

Greater transparency around remuneration may also help to close the gender pay gap by making firms more accountable. More than half of CA ANZ survey respondents (53%) have called for more pay transparency, such as access to pay scales and salary bands.

While New Zealand doesn’t currently mandate gender pay gap reporting for private employers, recent amendments to legislation in Australia mean since February 2024, 4.5 million workers can access their employer’s gender pay gaps, with every private-sector company with 100 or more employees required to report their pay-gap figures.

While New Zealand does not currently mandate gender pay gap reporting for private employers, recent amendments to legislation in Australia mean that 4.5 million workers could access their employer’s gender pay gaps, with every private-sector company with 100 or more employees required to report their pay-gap figures for the first time in February 2024.

The 2023 figures, which are published on the WGEA website, show that the gender pay gap of accounting firms such as Nexia, Mazars, RSM, William Buck, Bentleys (Qld) and PwC were within the best-practice 5% range. The figures relate to salaried employees and do not include equity partners. The second set of pay gap data was released by WGEA on 4 March 2025.

“Gender pay gap figures and the results from the WGEA reporting are now widely being included in company ESG metrics,” says Wooldridge. “We’re also getting quite a lot of anecdotal feedback that prospective employees are asking about a company’s gender pay gap during job interviews and what they’re doing about it.”

Wooldridge adds that gender pay gap figures are of increasing interest to investors and to clients.

“The feedback we receive has been quite comprehensive. A range of stakeholders are now using this transparency to check performance and ensure it aligns with their values,” she says.

“Most firms talk about commitments to gender equality, but it’s really important to translate that into action – practical change, where everyone can see equality demonstrated all the way up to the most senior levels of the organisation.”