Pay equity and housing security
In mid-2025, the Equal Pay Amendment Bill was passed under urgency and without full public scrutiny. In response, a group of ten former women MPs established the People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity to hear from individuals and organisations who were not given the opportunity to be heard through the formal parliamentary process.
CEWH made a submission to the Committee drawing on evidence from our research, Ngā Ara ki te Kāinga, and our long-standing advocacy on the link between pay inequity and housing insecurity for women. We stated that the proposed changes to pay equity risk undermining progress toward economic and housing equity - particularly for Māori and Pasifika women, where persistent wage gaps and housing inequities remain significant.
The People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity report, launched in February, reinforces these concerns. It makes clear that pay inequity disproportionately affects women and contributes to economic insecurity, which in turn is closely linked to housing instability and disadvantage in Aotearoa New Zealand.
On page 74, CEWH Kaihautu Dr Kathie Irwin is named among experts whose submissions highlight the disproportionate and intergenerational impact of pay inequity on wāhine Māori. Across submissions from Hauraki Wahine Māori, the Tūwharetoa Iwi Māori Partnership Board, PSA Rūnanga, the Māori Women’s Welfare League, Amokura Panoho, Dr Kathie Irwin and others, a shared narrative emerges: the 2025 Act is structurally biased against feminised workforces - such as care and support roles - where Māori are highly overrepresented.
The Committee also heard strong arguments that the changes represent a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and a retrogressive step in relation to New Zealand’s obligations under CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women).
Importantly, the report finds that previous pay equity settlements have delivered tangible benefits - including enabling security of housing, such as being able to meet rent without falling into arrears (p.76). This affirms what CEWH research has consistently shown: income adequacy is central to women’s housing stability.
Recent reporting by RNZ further illustrates this link. This RNZ article examining new data from Cotality’s Women and Property report shows that women - particularly younger women - are being left behind in the property market. Only 33 percent of Gen Z women and 37 percent of Millennial women own the home they live in, compared to more than half of Gen Z men and 66 percent of Millennial men. Just 12 percent of women report earning over $100,000 a year, compared to 25 percent of men - a gap that directly affects the ability to save deposits and service mortgages. Even leaders in the real estate industry are pointing out that lower incomes for women are a key factor in reduced home ownership, reinforcing that this is not about aspiration, but about structural inequity.
Housing instability does not occur in isolation. It sits at the centre of wider systems of inequality - disrupting connections to whenua, whānau, hapū and iwi, and eroding identity, belonging and wellbeing.
Ending women’s homelessness requires strengthening pay equity, addressing systemic discrimination, honouring Te Tiriti, and investing in community-led solutions that support hauora, housing stability and intergenerational security.
