Despite government policies to establish gender pay parity on both sides of the Tasman, the gender pay gap remains a persistent issue, with the national figure sitting at 8.2% in New Zealand and 11.9% in Australia. The 2024 CA ANZ Member Remuneration Survey identified that the pay gap in accounting sits at 22% in New Zealand and 18% in Australia, revealing the profession carries a considerable gap.

Roxanne Calder is a corporate coach and consultant and is passionate about empowering women to break through both societal and self-imposed limits. Her book, Earning Power: Breaking Barriers and Building Wealth for Women offers women data, insights and strategies to help them bridge the gender pay gap and identify opportunities to boost their worth.

But this issue is not a problem women can or should solve alone. It requires a concerted and collaborative effort from business leaders and male allies.

“Progress hasn’t stalled because we lack policies,” says Calder. “It's because the underlying beliefs haven’t changed. The pay gap isn’t just about salary, it’s about worth and how we value people’s time, ambition and potential.”

She says women are more likely to be under-promoted, penalised for negotiating and expected to prove their worth through loyalty, rather than impact. 

“Until we confront the invisible expectations that surround women at work, assumptions about availability, ambition and responsibility, the gap will persist.”

The business case to address the gender pay gap

Calder believes it’s in an organisation’s best interests to address its pay gap.

“The pay gap isn’t merely an issue of fairness, it’s a matter of business performance. When you under-reward top performers simply because they are women, you undervalue your own human talent.”

Over time, this drives disengagement, turnover and missed leadership potential. 

“You can’t claim to be a performance-driven organisation while upholding legacy patterns that reward the loudest voice or the most uninterrupted career,” says Calder.

So, how can individuals and organisations address this lack of parity, which can impede women's earning potential in the hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout their careers? 

Calder offers advice and strategies to help businesses, men and women, address the gender pay gap.

Five ways businesses can make changes for the better

1. Acknowledge the gender pay gap, without defensiveness. Use data as a tool for analysis. You can't take action on what isn’t named.
2. Make pay transparency meaningful. Broad ranges are not enough; be clear about how pay is determined.
3. Train leaders to identify bias in hiring and promotion decisions. Who gets sponsored? Who’s assumed to be ‘ready’?
4. Track opportunity, not just salary. Pay gaps start when the high-visibility, high-growth projects repeatedly go to the same profiles.
5. Reframe flexibility as a performance enabler for all employees, not a liability. When flexible roles are designed well, they retain top talent and reduce burnout, not productivity.

Five actions for men

1. Question your assumptions. If you’re a hiring manager, start by examining your own assumptions about competence, ambition or culture fit, or ask a colleague to challenge you (because it’s hard to recognise our own blind spots!).
2. Advocate for fairness. Consider how salaries are negotiated, communicated and reviewed. Start conversations that bring consistency and accountability to the table.
3. Even the best of intentions need reflection and review. Consider how often opportunity follows familiarity. Who do you instinctively trust and promote? Support women the same way you’ve likely supported men, with feedback, referrals and responsibility.
4. Use awareness to open doors. If you’re in a meeting where a decision is being made and no women are in the room, ask yourself why and whether that’s a pattern.
5. If you’ve had a strong start, use it to help pave the road for women. Instead of assuming you’ve earned everything on merit, ask yourself what else helped you get there.

Five actions for women

1. Know your value and get comfortable verbalising it. Self-advocacy is a skill, not a personality trait. Confidence doesn’t have to be pushy, but it does have to be visible.
2. Don’t wait to be ‘ready’ to apply for opportunities. Men often apply when they meet 60% of the criteria, while many women hesitate and wait until they feel 100% capable.
3. Ask better questions about pay. For example, ‘What’s the budgeted range for this role?’ often prompts a more transparent response than simply asking, ‘What’s the salary?’.
4. Track your contributions like a portfolio. Be ready to speak of outcomes, not just effort. Documenting impact is not arrogance, it’s leverage and smart.
5. Challenge your own internal narrative. Many women have been socially conditioned to minimise, over-apologise or justify ambition. 

Take aways

• CA ANZ’s playbook ‘Narrowing Your Gender Pay Gap’ is aimed at helping businesses identify and address pay inequity in the accounting profession.
• The CA ANZ 2024 Member Remuneration Survey contains a section dedicated to investigating what drives the gender pay gap in the accounting profession.
• The Workplace Gender Equality Agency in Australia offers employer guides to help businesses take action.
• The New Zealand Ministry for Women offers a free gender pay gap calculation toolkit. CA ANZ collaborated on the development of the toolkit.