Celebrities called out E! News on E! News at the 2018 Golden Globes over Catt Sadler's exit due to a massive pay difference to a male co-star with the same experience.

The Government has ordered Statistics NZ to begin measuring the country's gender pay gap.

Levelling out salaries in the public sector is something the new Government has committed to.

Recently media companies across the world have female co-hosts quitting due to the gender pay gap - citing that doing the same job and not getting the same pay was not right.

BBC NEWS BBC China editor Carrie Gracie accused the BBC of "breaking equality law" in how it pays female staff.

These have included BBC China editor Carrie Gracie, E! Channel's Catt Sadler, and Australia's Channel Nine breakfast show host Lisa Wilkinson.

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* New Zealand's big healthcare gender pay gap

* Julie Anne Genter: Govt can close gender pay gap in public sector within four years

* Hilary Barry: Newsreaders should be paid the same

* Mind the gender pay gap

On November 14 last year TVNZ's Hilary Barry tweeted "Dear Women of NZ, I've got some bad news for you. From today until the end of the year you're working for free."

Former Australian Channel 9 breakfast show host, Lisa Wilkinson, left the network because she was being paid much less than her co-star.

Barry is rumoured to be fronting Seven Sharp, which has always had a formula of one male and one female presenter. TVNZ would not comment if there would be any discrepancy in wages for the incoming hosts.

Dear Women of NZ, I've got some bad news for you. From today until the end of the year you're working for free. #GenderPayGap — Hilary Barry (@Hilary_Barry) November 13, 2017

MediaWorks also refused to say whether The Project hosts Jesse Mulligan, Kanoa Lloyd and Josh Thomson, were paid equally. The show returns to screens on Monday.

The gender pay gap is all too real for Wellington woman Tabitha Milne.

"I feel in my career I've been lucky enough to earn what I'm worth, but I don't think that happens across the board and I don't think that happens unless you're prepared to argue and fight for it. If you were a bit of a more reserved woman, you're probably not going to earn what your male counterparts are."

For Milne, the pay gap came down to women being the primary caregivers.

"I think it's probably the old school attitude of we pay our females less because we're going to end up having an empty seat when they go to have babies."

Mark Greer, owns Hawke's Bay business services company Bizdom​.

He doesn't know if the gender pay gap exists in the private sector. "I'm a commercial operator. I care about skills, not gender," Greer said.

"You have a responsibility to all of your stakeholders to pick the best person for their roles irrespective of gender. You need to get the right skills. I have an obligation to get the best candidate for the job with the right skills."

Greer questioned if the Government would even be able to tackle the topic, because it was one that was a lot more convoluted than a simple tweak to legislation.

"I would be concerned if the Government started saying I had to have certain percentage of females and males. I just don't know if the Government can do anything about [decreasing the gender wage gap]."

But new Statistics Minister James Shaw believed there was an onus on his department to gather the data, so the Government could fix it.

It was too early to know exactly how it was going to be measured, Shaw said in a written statement.

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