NIWA and Kia Toipoto – Closing Gender and Ethnic Pay Gaps

In 2022 NIWA commenced participation in the government's Kia Toipoto programme.

As a crown-owned company, in 2022 NIWA commenced participation in the New Zealand government’s Kia Toipoto programme, aimed at closing gender and ethnic pay gaps.

A joint NIWA/Public Service Association Pay Equity Working Group commenced work in mid-2022, and has met regularly since, completing an annual organisational gender and ethnic pay gap analysis, examining possible drivers of NIWA’s pay gaps by level where they exist, and identifying and implementing actions to address these.  

At 30 June 2023, NIWA had 741 staff (706 FTEs) across 14 locations. Of these 75% were engaged in science roles, and 25% in support services, and 59% were male and 41% female. There were 89% of staff working full-time, and 11% part-time, with 95% in permanent positions and 5% in fixed term positions. In terms of ethnicity, 74.7% of NIWA’s staff identified as being of European ethnicity, 7.8% Asian, 5.1% Māori, 2.8% African/Middle Eastern/Latin American, and 0.9% Pacific Peoples, with 2% choosing another ethnicity and 6.7% not providing this information. NIWA has a relatively cosmopolitan workforce, with 47 different nationalities represented.

The overall results of NIWA’s 2023 gender and ethnic pay gap analysis for the organisation follow (note that there were insufficient numbers of Pacific Peoples at NIWA to analyse the pay gap data for this group).

NIWA Gender Pay Gap 2023:

Base Salary:

Male

Female

Gender Pay Gap

Mean

$112,604

$97,388

13.5%

NIWA Non-Maori and Maori Pay Gap 2022:

Base Salary:

Non-Māori

Māori

Ethnic Pay Gap

Mean

$108,122

$97,425

9.9%