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Mothers in the military are being offered incentive payments to rejoin the forces after having a baby.
Mothers - or fathers who are primary caregivers for their children - are being paid six weeks' pay six months after returning from parental leave.
The policy helped to win the Defence Force a "diversity award" in the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust's annual work and life awards in Auckland this week.
Human resources senior manager Laura Gillan said the policy aimed to tackle "the pervasiveness of masculinity in the military culture and the pressures put on women to conform to a masculine set of values and standards".
Captain Megan Elmiger, a 30-year-old mother based at Burnham army camp near Christchurch, took advantage of the policy to go back to work fulltime when her daughter Zoe was 6 months old. She was one of at least two mothers posted to East Timor from May to December last year.
"Zoe hadn't turned 3 at the time, and I'm about to go away on a course which means I will have missed three out of her first four birthdays.
"But I also feel I'm a good mother able to balance things because the additional allowance I earned from East Timor can go towards her education and doing those extra bits and pieces that maybe some parents can't provide for their children."
Two months ago Captain Elmiger married another soldier who is currently serving in the Sinai, but she still shares Zoe's parenting with Zoe's father, a Christchurch civilian. When both parents are working, Zoe goes to a day care centre at the Burnham camp.
"The day care centre is great, I can't rave about them enough," Captain Elmiger said. "I can drop Zoe off before work, concentrate on my job and pick her up after work and have a good home life."
Her experiences are motivating other women in the armed forces such as Sub-Lieutenant Ginette Van Der Gulik, a naval officer on the HMNZS Canterbury.
All barriers to women in combat roles were removed in 2000 and flexible working hours have been allowed since 2002. But progress has been slow. Women have only increased from 14.6 per cent of the armed services in 1998 to 16.7 per cent today.
"It was always going to take a long time because we grow our own," Mrs Gillan said. "We had to work very hard to make sure women didn't feel they had to leave when theyhad children.
"We now have a very good retention rate of women in the armed forces. It used to be that you married and resigned and left. Now people are taking their parental leave and they are coming back."
* Other work and life awards were won by: Beca Transportation (the other diversity award), Franklin Kindergarten Association (large organisation), Phoenix Supported Employment (small/medium organisation), Southern Cross Healthcare (innovation award), ANZ National Bank manager Matt Pickering and Ministry of Research, Science and technology head Helen Anderson (walk the talk awards) and Enterprising Manukau (first steps award).
