OPINION: Each week, the Herald/Newstalk ZB's new Cooking The Books podcast will tackle a different money problem. Today's looks at older people and women being paid less for their work, on average. So what can employees do? Hosted by Frances Cook.Pay gaps are real, and they're not fair. Whether it's because of your gender, your age or some other fun form of discrimination, there are employers out there who will try to exploit you. They're more common than you think. Information given to the Herald by Statistics New Zealand showed the average worker earned the most between 40 and 44. It's understandable that younger people are cheaper, and you'd hope they get paid more as they get more experience. But it doesn't make sense that your earning would drop again when you hit your older 40s. What's happening to these older workers, who are nowhere near retirement age? Meanwhile, this week we've seen an historic moment as three women became the first to use the Government's new pay equity mediation service. The gender pay gap leaves women earning 12 percent less than men, which widens up to 20 percent if you're in a typically high-earning role. The latest Government research found 80 percent of that gap was because of "unexplained" factors. Translate that from bureaucrat speak and it's because of bias, whether or not the bosses are aware of their bias. Clearly, business and Government leaders need to do more to fix this, because older people and women getting paid less is just inexcusable. Until they do, I'm a fan of taking whatever action you can yourself. Be open about how much you're paid, talk to co-workers, make sure you're giving your company great work and then hound your boss for a raise. But is that the right tactic?  I spoke to Robert Walters New Zealand director Shay Peters for the latest episode of Cooking the Books. He admitted the figures on earning potential at different ages surprised him, and he would have expected to see the earning peak coming in someone's mid-fifties instead. "If you're within a role, and you feel like you're being discriminated against, there's always constructive conversations you can have with your boss or your line manager. "It's more around having a conversation on what you can provide, what you need to do to get to that next step, and see what they come back with. "Almost let them come back to you and say what the issues are, or what the gaps are. "There are definitely ways you can frame that conversation in the positive, without it being too daunting." He recommends that if you want a pay rise, you should arm yourself with as much information as you can. "There are a number of online salary surveys you can use. "Another way is to quickly ring a recruitment consultancy that specialises in the area you work in, they'll have a very good understanding of the market, and what the market rate looks like for your particular skill set." So far, we were in agreement.   But when it came to sharing your salary with your co-workers, Peters disagreed with my preference for openness. "People are often hired in very different contexts, and very different labour conditions at that time," he said. "If it's a skill-short market, and you're having to head hunt someone out of a job that they're very happy in, you're probably going to have to pay a premium. "That's very different from someone who was hired in a different market condition. "So there's a bit of a risk of creating a toxic culture around salary discrepancies, when they could be for valid and different reasons." Personally, I still think it's worth being open. If there's a reason for a difference in what co-workers are paid, then the boss shouldn't be afraid to tell you what it is. For the full interview, listen to the podcast. To ask a question about this podcast, or suggest a topic for the future, get in touch.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.