Key facts

• Life expectancy of Māori girls at birth has been steadily increasing from 56 years in 1952 to 73 years in 1992 but remains lower than that for non-Māori girls.
• By 2046, 14% of Māori women will be aged over 65, compared with only 3% in 1996.
• On average, Māori women have more children than non-Māori women, have far fewer children now than they had in the 1960s, and Māori women have more children than non-Māori women.
• While most Māori women live in urban areas, they are less likely than non-Māori women to do so. Only 35% of Māori women live in the five largest cities of New Zealand, compared with 50% of non-Māori women.
• One in five Māori women lives as part of an extended family household, the most common being the three or more generations family.
• Almost half of Māori women aged 16 and over do not have any dependent children.
• Māori women tend to have their children at a younger age than non-Māori women, and so have quite different patterns of participation in post-compulsory education and training, and in the labour force.
• Between 1990 and 1997, the number of enrolments of Māori girls in early childhood education services increased by 33%. Te kohanga reo is the single largest early childhood education provider for Māori girls.
• The number of Māori women enrolled in formal tertiary education has increased dramatically, more than doubling over the last eight years.
• Māori women are vulnerable to unemployment. In 1996 the unemployment rate for Māori women was 19% compared with 7% for non-Māori women.
• Māori women in the labour force continue to be concentrated in low employment growth sectors.
• Forty-one percent of Māori children aged 0–14 live in families with an income of less than $20,000, compared with about 20% of non-Māori children.
• Māori women are more likely than non-Māori women to undertake unpaid work outside the home.

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