The gender pay gap in the public service has dropped to the lowest it's been since records began in 2000.
The fall of 1.7 per cent, down from 12.2 per cent to 10.5 per cent, is also the biggest year-on-year reduction.
Women's Minister Julie Anne Genter said the challenge now is "to maintain the momentum we’ve started in our workplaces".
Public sector workers saw it fall from 12.2 per cent in 2018 to 10.5 per cent this year, according to a new Government report.
"We have focused on starting salaries, countering bias and discrimination, paying people fairly for doing the same job, and increasing flexible work," she said.
"Pay equity settlements, including support workers at the Ministry of Education and social workers at Oranga Tamariki, have delivered positive outcomes for Māori and Pacific women.
"The gender pay gap for Māori, Pacific and Asian women has reduced, although we still have a long way to go."
A new Human Rights Commission campaign is pushing for more transparency.
The public sector employs over 300,000 people. The Government announced last year it aimed to close the pay gap - where are being paid women lower than men for the same role - within the sector by the end 2020.
Ms Genter wants two-thirds of agencies to have closed the gap by 2019, and there was an expectation of all Ministries to have closed the gap by the end of next year. Last year, the Ministry of Defence's pay gap was 40 per cent, followed by Crown Law at 30 per cent.
This year, the Human Rights Commission launched a Pay Transparency campaign, which is calling for public information on pay scales and career progression to be made available by employers.
It came after there was almost no progress in closing the gender pay gap nationally in the past two years with figures remaining relatively static, according to Statistics New Zealand data.
Social worker Lauren Bartley told Breakfast about her experience with pay discrimination.
The national pay gap sits at 9.3 per cent ( calculated using median pay ) - comparatively the public service gender pay gap was 6.2 per cent if calculated using median pay. In 2018, the national pay gap was 9.2 per cent, and 9.4 per cent in 2017.
The gender pay gap nationally shows the difference in median hourly earnings for men and women. Stats NZ uses the median value because it is less influenced by very high or very low earners than a mean average.
The 1972 Equal Pay Act outlawed separate rates of pay for men and women.
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