Equity and Diversity in the Workplace: A Discussion on Legislation and Sociological Theory

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Equity and Diversity in the workplace
Questions based assignment
29-Mar-18
(Student Details: )

Equity and Diversity in the workplace
Question 1
In the article dated August 2017 published online, the discussion is undertaken regarding
raising the awareness about diversity in workplace, particularly in context of women in business
leadership. This article highlights the event being organized by around 240 senior women leaders
of New Zealand to push for greater diversity. In order to highlight the need for bringing more
diverse workforce, where women are given equal preference and equal standing, the discussion
also presented certain statistics. It was provided that in the NZX50 companies, only one woman
led the company, rest all the companies were in hand of males. There is only 22% board
members position in NZX100 who are women. And on an average, the women are paid 12% less
than men. This is the case even when NZ has the foundations of being a global leader in this
place, which would not only benefit the society but economy as well, as it would bring gender
equal and diverse leadership. Even though public sector holds 45% women as board of directors,
the private sector has been very slow in this direction. Even with the Equal Pay Act being passed
45 years back, the situation is grim and the women are underrepresented in leadership roles
(Nadkarni, 2017).
In the contemporary society, this position is most likely to continue. There has been an
increase in number of women who have entered the labour market and they have been working
in paid employment for longer hours. In 1951, only 28.4% of the women of NZ between the ages
of 15-64 had full time employment, whilst in 2001 this percentage had seen a raise of 56.4%.
And even with the substantial increase in the participation of women, the women are still given
the primary responsibility of child care and housework in the home. The current study which had
been undertaken suggests that there have been gender differences in manners where young adults
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Equity and Diversity in the workplace
of the nation give their time to different activities, and yet there was similarity between the
working activities of men and women (Gibb, Fergusson & Boden, 2018).
Another study conducted in this context highlighted that there was a substantial
difference found in the occupation and employment patterns, less earnings and levels of seniority
in between the men and the women and this continues to be present in the labour market of New
Zealand even with the major narrowing of gaps which favour men. To put this in perspective, the
June 2014 quarter revealed that there was an unemployment rate for women which had been
6.4% higher than the male rate of 4.8% which had declined in comparison to last year. There
have been feminist groups, unions and academics who have long argued that he Equal Pay Act of
NZ, which covers equal pay for work of equal work even with its arcane wording. There is a
need to implement the equal pay for the successful working of equal value principles and for this
principle to intervene for reducing the undervaluation of the female based working (Hyman,
2018).
References
Equal Pay Act, 1972
Gibb, S. J., Fergusson, D. M., & Boden, J. M. (2018). Gender differences in paid and unpaid
work: Findings from a New Zealand birth cohort. Policy Quarterly, 9(3).
Hyman, P. (2018). Is active intervention still needed to improve the position of women in the
New Zealand labour market. Policy Quarterly, 11(1).
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Equity and Diversity in the workplace
Nadkarni, A. (2017). Not just a women's issue: Global Women's 1 Day for Change video.
Retrieved from: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/95562022/global-womens-1-day-for-
change
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