20 February 2026 On The Conversation: More women are professors, but gender gaps continue to plague NZ universities

On The Conversation, Lincoln University Senior Lecturer Dr Shannon Davis was one of six academics who discussed the role universities play in achieving gender equality and the continued gender imbalances in pay and leadership appointments across New Zealand universities. 

Universities play a crucial role in achieving gender equality, but persistent disparities in leadership, pay and research opportunities continue to shape women’s careers in academia.

Globally, only 36% of senior academics are women.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, research revealed striking gender imbalances in both pay and leadership appointments across all eight universities during the period between 2002 and 2017.

All universities have since worked to address the issue and now have equity frameworks. As a group of women working at five different universities, we analysed publicly available data to assess progress.

We found universities are closing the pay gap, slowly. But men are still more likely to fill senior leadership roles in the highest pay brackets.

Research published in 2020, looking at data from the early 2000s, found women at New Zealand universities experienced a lifetime gender pay gap of an estimated NZ$400,000.

The odds of women reaching senior (associate or full professor) ranks were less than half those of men. In senior roles, only 37% of heads of department and 25% of deans were women.

Since then, the national median pay gap across all sectors has dropped from 9.4% in favour of men in 2017 to 8.2% in 2024 and 5.2% in 2025, although the most recent drop could be largely due to the recession driving low-paid women out of work.

How do universities compare? As of February 2026, only three of eight universities (Otago, AUT, Auckland) have released recent pay gap reports. The median pay gap ranged between 9.8% and 11.9% in 2024.

However, a closer look reveals the data are skewed by differences between professional and academic staff. For academics, the gap ranged from 14.1% (Auckland) to 18% (Otago) in 2024, and widened at Otago in 2025, to 20%.

Historical data are not available for most institutions, but the median academic pay gap appears to be narrowing slowly, from more than 25% in 2017 to 20% in 2025 (at the University of Otago).

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