Equal Pay Act of 1963
In 1942, Republican congresswoman Winifred C. Stanley from Buffalo, N.Y. introduced H.R. 5056, Prohibiting Discrimination in Pay on Account of Sex, which did not pass at the time. The issue languished until 10 June 1963, when Congress passed the Equal Pay Act ("EPA" or the "Act") as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, to "prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers."
Gender pay gap in New Zealand
Until 1960, separate pay rates for men and women doing the same work were legal in both the public and private sectors. Now there is legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in employment. The Government Service Equal Pay Act 1960 abolished gender-based pay scales in the public service and in 1972 this was extended to the private sector in the Equal Pay Act. The Human Rights Act (1993) and the Employment Relations Act 2000 prohibit sex discrimination in all aspects of employment, including pay. New Zealand is signatory to international agreements with the International Labour Organization and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women that prohibit sex discrimination in employment. Despite the legal prohibition on sex discrimination in employment, New Zealand has a persistent pay gap although by international comparison it is moderately placed on global pay equality indexes. There is a larger difference in the pay gap between men and women from Pacific ethnicities than those with European ethnicities. Two main sources of New Zealand’s gender pay gap have been suggested: women are often clustered in undervalued occupations and women are under-represented in higher-level and managerial positions.