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A new AUT study based on data from 28 central public service departments and 20 district health boards shows large disparities in pay across ethnicities.
Maori and Pacific staff in government departments and district health boards are much less likely to earn six-figure salaries than their Pākehā counterparts.
That’s according to a study based on data from the Official Information Act led by researchers from Auckland University of Technology, published in the International Journal of Indigenous Critical Studies.
Data on ethnic wages were collected from 28 Central Public Sector Departments (CPSD) and 20 DHB, focusing on the total number of full-time equivalent employees by ethnicity (Maori, Pacific, or other) and those earning more than $ 100,000 .
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AUT Senior Lecturer Dr. Heather Came said they found that entire government departments, at different times, did not have senior Maori or Pacific staff.
The data, measured in 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016, showed that in 2016 only 106 Pacific employees and 209 Maori employees employed at DHB earned more than $ 100,000, compared to 7,340 employees from the “Other” ethnic group.
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While the proportion of Maori and Pacific personnel in DHBs earning more than $ 100,000 increased over the 15-year period (from 0.5 to 2.7 percent and 0.5 to 1.4 percent, respectively ), the ethnic pay gap remained.
The researchers found that there was also a disproportionately lower representation of Maori and Pacific staff in DHBs, compared to the national population.
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While the proportion of Maori and Pacific staff in central public sector departments reflected the general population, there was still a marked ethnic disparity in salaries.
Only 26 of the 28 CPSDs were able to provide data for 2001.
Of those, 14 out of 26 had Maori staff making more than $ 100,000 in 2001. By 2016, this number had risen to 26.
In 2001, only four of the 26 CPSDs had Pacific staff making more than $ 100,000. This increased to 9 in 2006, 18 in 2011, and 16 in 2016.
Dr. Heather Came, a senior professor and head of AUT’s public health department, said the failure to promote Maori and Pacific personnel to the “higher levels” of the public sector was an illustration of institutional racism.
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Dr Heather Came said the findings suggest that New Zealand’s major health and public sectors do not have the benefit of having expertise in Maori and the Pacific.
“We now know that entire government departments, at different times, have not had senior Maori or Pacific personnel.”
Given that New Zealand has had decades of EEO (equal employment opportunity) policy in the public sector, it was “remarkable” that this was allowed to occur, according to the document.
The findings suggested that the public and health sectors did not benefit from the Maori and Pacific experience, which could contribute to the problems seen in the health, education and justice systems for indigenous and minority groups, Came said.
Came said that we needed to recognize and address racism within the institutions of the Crown.
While the study provided “important” qualitative data, more work was needed in this “under-researched” area, he said.
Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes said the issue of ethnic pay gaps and the shortage of Maori, Pacific and Asian ethnicities in leadership and management positions was a problem for all of New Zealand, not just the public sector.
Hughes, the commissioner who covers the 32 central government departments / ministries, said the public service focus in recent years had been to close the gender pay gap.
Attention now turned to closing the ethnic pay gap, which Hughes said had seen improvements for ethnic Maori, Pacific and Asian from 2018 to 2019.
