ANZ to top up KiwiSaver contributions for staff on parental leave

On average Kiwi women earn $608,000 less than men over their lifetime despite New Zealand having one of the smaller gender pay gaps in the OECD, according to a report released by ANZ Bank today.

The research is part of a campaign by the bank to raise awareness of the looming gender gap in retirement savings, with women forecast to retire with an average $59,000 less than men with just $144,000 compared to $203,000.

ANZ said from October it will top up KiwiSaver contributions for female and male staff on parental leave and called on other kiwi employers to follow suit. It's also increasing paid parental leave from 16 to 18 weeks from next year.

ANZ general manager human resources Felicity Evans said many women take time out of work to raise families and stop contributing to KiwiSaver during this time.

She said women have made great strides on the education front with more New Zealand working women having a bachelor degree than men, and New Zealand now has one of the highest proportion of women with a tertiary qualification, second only to Canada.

There are also more women in the workforce with 63 percent working or actively looking for work, which is up from 54 percent ten years ago, while the male employment rate is unchanged at 75 percent. Women are 1.2 times more likely than men to be employed in professional roles but 50 percent less likely to be employed as managers.

According to OECD figures, New Zealand's gender pay gap stacks up well relative to the rest of the developed countries at 6.2 percent of the male median wage compared to the OECD average of 16 percent in 2012. However the latest Statistics NZ figures for 2014 comparing the median hourly earnings of men and women in full and part-time work puts the pay gap at 9.9 percent.

New Zealand women earned an average $300 less per week than men in 2014, which equates to around $608,400 over their lifetime, the bank said.

"Clearly this has implications on the amount of money women can save for their future retirement," Evans said.

The research also showed on average kiwi women live longer than men and are retired for 20 years compared to 14 years for men, so their savings need to last longer. But after eight years of KiwiSaver, average balances for women members of the bank's scheme are almost 28 percent lower than men, which is up from 26.5 percent the previous year.

(BusinessDesk)