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Executive summary

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Introduction

This report presents a set of gender disparity indicators from six sectors covering education, employment, income, health, housing, and criminal justice.

The two main purposes of the Report are to:

Identify the disparities that exist between Māori women, Māori men, non-Māori women, and non-Māori men across the sectors of education, employment, income, health, housing, and criminal justice, using a selection of indicators.
Analyse the status of Māori women and girls, relative to other groups, and against progress towards achieving the Government's Goals for Women of equity, opportunity and choice; full and active participation; adequate resources; no discrimination; and, a society that values the contribution of women.
The data and information in this report are a tool to assist agencies to undertake gender analysis as it applies to Māori women and their roles within whānau, hapū, iwi and Māori society.

The Report provides the necessary background information to identify where concrete action is required across the six sectors to address the disparities identified in the Report.

The indicators and most of the associated data in this report are based on populations of individuals, rather than whānau, hapū or iwi. Therefore, care should be taken in interpreting the findings of this report, as it does not provide a full picture of Māori women's aspirations and successes. Rather, the Report has been compiled to assist government agencies to be more responsive to Māori women and to develop approaches and solutions in partnership with Māori women that support the Crown's Treaty of Waitangi principles of partnership, participation and protection.

Key Issues

Gender and Ethnic Disparities
Gender and ethnicity interact in complex ways. It is important, therefore, for all sectors to identify both gender and ethnic disparities in order to understand the position of Māori women and girls. For example, Māori women, compared to Māori men, receive generally lower incomes and Māori women share similarities with non-Māori women in their labour force participation and employment rates. However, Māori women and girls tend to do better on all education indicators than Māori boys and men. In the health area, disparities between Māori and non-Māori are greater than between Māori men and women, e.g. Māori experience shorter life expectancies and higher mortality rates than non-Maori.

Information Needs
The report emphasises the need for improvement in the collection and analysis of data disaggregated by sex and ethnicity. The existence of high quality, readily available and reliable information disaggregated by sex and ethnicity varied considerably across each of the six sectors.

There are also research gaps. For example, there is a lack of research on income in relation to Māori generally, and Māori women in particular. There is little information on non-standard forms of employment, and the gender pay gap. Very little is known about housing issues, such as the nature and extent of Māori women's housing need. There is also little research on Māori women's offending.

Intersectoral Approach
Improving the status of Maori women cannot be addressed by focusing on each of the six sectors in isolation. Māori women's lives are not split into sectors. There is increasing evidence that deprivation in one area flows on to deprivation in other areas. The report therefore emphasises intersectoral dependencies and calls for a ‘whole of government' approach to policy initiatives aimed at addressing the disparities. An approach that analyses impacts and links policy initiatives across sectors is required. A partnership approach is also required where agencies engage with Māori women and with Māori women's initiatives that are successful.

Sector Findings

Education
At all levels of education except tertiary enrolment at age 30 and above, the disparities between Maori and non-Māori are greater than the disparities between Māori women/girls and Māori men/boys. In terms of participation, achievement and progress non-Māori girls tend to do best, followed by non-Māori boys, Māori girls and Māori boys in that order. This pattern endures throughout compulsory education.

There are clear disparities between Māori and non-Māori:

There is substantial disparity between Māori and non-Māori enrolments in early childhood services, especially for 4-year-olds.
While Māori retention rates at senior school levels have improved since the 1980s, they are still lower than those of non-Māori.
Māori are far more likely to be suspended from school than their non-Māori counterparts.
Considerably higher proportions of non-Māori leave school with qualifications than do Māori.
Higher proportions of non-Māori gain awards at degree or postgraduate level.

On all education indicators, Māori girls do better than Māori boys. While disparities between Māori girls and boys in early childhood education are negligible, by the time they reach the end of schooling, there are significant disparities in participation and achievement, with Māori girls doing better than Māori boys. However, participation and achievement need to be raised for all Māori students. In key areas, such as numeracy and literacy, retention at age 16, suspensions and school qualifications, Māori girls do not do as well as non-Māori girls or non-Māori boys.

In the 1990s, Māori women made the greatest gains in tertiary enrolments proportionate to population. As a proportion of all those aged 15 and over, Māori women were more likely than any other group to be enrolled in a tertiary education institution in 1999.

Increasing educational participation and achievement is critical to Māori girls and women and girls gaining paid employment and maintaining sustainable incomes. Improving educational opportunities for Māori women and girls at all stages from early childhood to tertiary education should therefore be a high priority.

Participation in early childhood education sets the foundation for participation and achievement at the compulsory school level. Key barriers to early childhood education participation are the costs of services and access to services, particularly in rural areas.

The young age of the Māori population mean that Māori will continue to make up significant proportions of the school population in the future. Over 85% of Māori students are educated in the general schools system; therefore, the responsiveness and quality of mainstream schools will be critical for Māori girl's success in education.

The transition to post-compulsory education and training is critical to Māori women's employment and income. Focusing priority on the following areas for Māori women and girls will enhance their training, employment and earnings prospects:

Increasing the retention of Māori girls in schools.
Raising the achievement levels for Māori girls.
Enabling Māori women to raise their levels of post-compulsory education and training by ensuring access and support that takes account of women's child-rearing responsibilities, e.g. access to affordable and appropriate childcare.

Employment
The disparities between women's and men's labour force participation are larger than the disparities between Māori and non-Māori. Both Māori and non-Māori women have lower participation rates and employment rates than their male counterparts. Focusing on Māori women, the indicators show:

Māori women's participation rates and employment rates have been considerably lower than Māori men's over the past 15 years, although their participation has steadily increased.
Māori women have the lowest full-time employment rates of all groups (Māori women, Māori men, non-Māori women and non-Māori men).
Māori women are considerably less likely than non-Māori women to participate in the labour force in the 15-34 age group.
The percentage of those employed people wanting more hours of paid work has risen steeply, most noticeably for Māori women.

When unemployment rates and jobless rates are considered, the disparities between Māori and non-Māori are much larger than the disparities between male and female rates. Unemployment rates and jobless rates for Māori women and men have been consistently higher than non-Māori rates since the early 1990s. With regard to Māori women:

Māori women have the highest unemployment rate of all groups (Māori women, Māori men, non-Māori women and non-Māori men).
The unemployment rates for Māori women and Māori men have been similar from 1986 to 2000.
Both Māori women and Māori men have been concentrated in segments of the labour market where job losses have been the heaviest.
Māori women and men are well over twice as likely as non-Māori women and men to be unemployed long-term.
Māori women have the highest jobless rate of all groups (Māori women, Māori men, non-Māori women and non-Māori men).

Unpaid work continues to play a much greater role for women, particularly Māori women, than for men. Women, especially Māori women, are more likely to take part in unpaid work outside the home, and spend roughly twice as many hours as men on unpaid work.

Increasing employment opportunities for Māori women is critical to their and their children's financial independence and security. Key areas to be considered in facilitating greater of Māori women in the labour market include:

Availability of and access to suitable and affordable childcare.
Access to a range of educational and training opportunities.
Reducing the impacts of violence against Māori women as this affects their ability to enter and remain in paid employment.
Disincentives and barriers facing sole parents in seeking and sustaining viable employment.
The effects of Māori women's involvement in casual/temporary work and the kinds of support required to make such employment a viable option.
Contributions made and resource costs involved in undertaking unpaid work, including community-based work and caring for others.

Income
Income disparities are related most strongly to gender. Maori women are in the worst position of the four groups for five out of the seven income indicators. Compared to Maori men, non-Maori women and non-Maori men, Maori women have:

The highest proportion with hourly earnings below the national median.
The lowest proportion in the highest income quintile.
The lowest proportion receiving income from wages, salaries or self-employment.
The highest proportion receiving the DPB.
The highest proportion to have household income below $20,000.

There is a significant gender gap in incomes. The median incomes of Māori women and non-Māori women are similar over their lifetimes. In particular, there is a considerable gap between the pay received by women and men in employment. Lower earnings over a women's lifetime exposes her to financial hardship, insecurity and vulnerability. It impacts on her ability to meet housing costs, to provide for children, to own her own home, to cope with illness and disability, and to save for retirement.

Key issues for Māori women therefore are:

Raising levels of education, training and work experience in ways that can lead to improved incomes.
Removing barriers and disincentives to sole parents seeking and sustaining employment.

Health
Health disparities are related to both gender and ethnicity. Māori health status is considerably lower than non-Maori health status across all indicators, from life expectancy at birth to morbidity and mortality. There are clear differences in the health status of Maori and non-Maori women:

Maori girls under 15 are more likely than non-Maori girls to be admitted to hospital for meningococcal disease, acute respiratory infections, asthma, and homicide and injury deliberately inflicted by others.
Young Māori women are more likely to die from suicide or self-inflicted injury than young non-Māori women, but the rate of hospitalisation for suicide or self-inflicted injury is highest for young non-Māori women.
The fertility rate for young Māori women aged 11-17 is over four times the rate for young non-Māori women.
Adult mortality rates, specifically for lung cancer, heart disease and cervical cancer, are considerably higher for Māori women than non- Māori women.

Generally, the health status of Māori men is lower than that of Māori women:

Māori women have a better life expectancy than Māori men.
Māori boys have the highest rate of hospitalisations of all four groups from homicide and injury purposely inflicted by other persons, although the actual number of deaths per year is small.
Among young Māori men there are considerably more suicide and self-injury deaths than for young Maori women.
Young Māori men have the highest number of motor vehicle traffic accident mortality of all groups. Such accidents are also a major cause of death for young Māori women.
Māori men have considerably higher mortality rates than Māori women. Of all four groups Māori men have the highest rates of mortality from lung cancer and from ischemic heart disease.

However, Māori women's smoking rates are higher than those for men, and Māori women are more likely than Māori men or non-Māori women and men to suffer from osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis and most immune disorders.

Health initiatives need to be developed and delivered in ways that are specifically focused on the health needs of Māori women. Māori women's health needs are not synonymous with Māori health needs, nor with women's health needs, although there are overlaps.

Improving Māori women's health status requires consideration of:

How policy interventions might address socio-economic disparities that negatively impact on health. Factors such as low incomes, unemployment, poor housing, living in unsafe neighbourhoods and low participation and achievement in education are recognised as important determinants of poor health and shorter lives.
Māori women's access to health services including:

Promoting a focus on the holistic Māori view of health.
Enhancing Māori women's choices about their health provider, including the opportunity to access programmes run by Māori women.
Effectively providing for the diverse needs of Māori women of different ages and life stages, with different levels of attachment to hapu and iwi structures.
Improving the capacity of mainstream health providers to deliver services to Māori.
Increasing the numbers and qualifications of the Māori health workforce, including greater recognition and training of Māori community health workers, and a process for involving traditional healers in health care provision.

Housing
Housing disparities are primarily related to ethnicity. Māori women and men are more likely than non-Māori women and men to live in:

Rental accommodation rather than owner-occupied housing.
Temporary housing.
Housing that uses no heating and housing that heats water only by burning wood.
Crowded accommodation (except for Pacific men and women, who are the most likely to live in crowded accommodation).

Māori women experience particular housing difficulties, which are more acute for the 30 percent of Māori women living with children in households with a household income below $20,000 per annum. Housing costs place a major burden on household incomes for many Māori women.

Māori women constitute the largest single group of people living in households that are the most crowded (with a Crowding Index of 1.5 or more). Māori women also have comparatively long stays in refuge accommodation (although the stays of Pacific women are longer), indicating that Māori women find it difficult to find safe permanent housing.

Lack of affordable, safe housing in good physical condition can result in negative impacts on health and wellbeing for them and their families. A range of factors is expected to continue to affect Māori women's housing choices and opportunities: for example, the age structure and size of the Māori population; the trend to one-parent families; increasing Māori movement to rural areas; rising housing costs in relation to income; declining home-ownership; increasing dilapidation of housing stock, especially in rural areas.

Māori women's housing situation will be improved by:

Supporting Māori women's access to home ownership as well as affordable and quality rental accommodation.
Measures to ensure that the housing stock is appropriate both in quality and quantity.
Catering for the specific housing needs of large families and diverse whānau responsibilities.
Improving the alignment of housing and welfare policies in the operation of the Accommodation Supplement and Income Related Rents.
Encouraging a wider mix of housing providers including iwi, Māori and community-based providers.
Identifying and developing specific housing initiatives that are responsive to the particular needs of Māori women.
Giving particular attention to the housing needs of Māori women in emergency housing, refuges, and in transition between accommodation.

Housing solutions for Māori women should be developed in partnership with them. In particular, public rental housing providers should work in partnership with Māori women on building design, siting and standards of rental accommodation.

Criminal Justice
In this sector the disparities tend to be predominantly gender-related. Men tend to be offenders and women are over-represented as victims. Both Māori and non-Māori women are more likely to suffer victimisation in relation to committing offences than their male counterparts.

With regard to victimisation:

Māori women are over-represented among victims of domestic violence and are more likely to experience repeat victimisation from a partner.
A higher proportion of Māori women than non-Māori women apply for protection orders under the Domestic Violence Act 1995.
Māori women and children are heavy users of women's refuge services. There is some evidence that Māori women do not access other services for victims at the rate that might be expected.

With regard to offending:

Both female and male Māori youth are far more likely to be apprehended and prosecuted than their non-Māori counterparts.
Māori women are five times more likely to be prosecuted for an offence than non-Māori women, and Māori men are over three times more likely to be prosecuted than are non-Māori men.
Although far fewer Māori women than Māori men offend, there are some indications that Māori women are becoming increasingly involved in offending.
Māori women make up over 60% of total numbers of sentenced women imprisoned, a higher percentage than Māori men compared to non-Māori men (around 50%).

Establishing and maintaining sustainable families, whānau and communities is seriously threatened by:

The high incidence of domestic violence experienced by Māori women.
The disproportionately high representation of Māori women in offending.
The significant and rising over-representation of young Māori women in the criminal justice system.
Impacts of the offending of male partners on Māori women.
Impacts of Māori offending on children.
High rates of Māori re-offending.

Addressing socio-economic disparities in areas such as health, education and employment have the potential to impact on crime. For example, crime prevention approaches that include a wider focus on the social and economic development of Māori should be considered.

In addition, specific interventions could be considered, such as:

Rehabilitative interventions for Māori women offenders.
Victims' services which are developed to be effective and responsive to Māori women's needs.
Suitable interventions specifically designed to respond to young Māori women's offending.
Greater provision of services by Maori providers.
Support for Māori service providers to develop the necessary skills to work with Māori offenders.

Agreed Actions

The report sets out further work being undertaken by government agencies and the Ministry of Women's Affairs to improve outcomes for women. These include:

Ministry of Education
Consideration of how gaps in current policies and programmes can address the following issues:

Funding and access to affordable and quality childcare and ECE services, including Māori language immersion services.
Increasing retention of Māori girls and boys in schools.
Raising achievement for Māori girls and boys in schools.
Enabling Māori women to raise their levels of post-compulsory education and training.

The Ministry of Education will be reporting on further work that is required to address gaps in current policies and programmes to address the issues highlighted in this report.

Department of Labour

Developing options for improving analysis and reporting on closing the gender pay gap, with particular attention to factors that have strongest impact on Māori women (e.g. occupational segregation, educational and training qualifications).

Ministry of Social Policy

Developing options for removing barriers and disincentives to sole parents seeking and sustaining employment.

Ministry of Health
The Ministry of Health will be reporting on how it will contribute to monitoring the improvement of outcomes for Māori women by:

Developing a plan of action, consistent with the New Zealand Health Strategy to reduce ethnic, socio-economic, and gender inequalities in health, and which also improves Māori women's access to health services, including Māori-based services. This plan will include an inter-sectoral approach and a population health approach.

Housing New Zealand Limited

Developing options for improving Māori women's access to affordable, quality and safe housing.

Ministry of Justice

Developing a strategy to reduce crime that will include analysis of gender and ethnicity implications.

Department of Corrections
Developing options for the delivery of better rehabilitation programmes and reintegrative services for Māori women and their whānau, including the participation of Māori women and their whānau in the development and delivery of programmes and services.

Ministry of Women's Affairs
Working with agencies on the issues identified in the report, including encouraging them to incorporate gender analysis in policy.
Working with women's organisations to develop effective solutions for Māori women.
Specific initiatives, such as the:

Development of a Women's Strategy for advancing Government's Goals for Women which addresses the diverse lives of women, including Māori women.
Establishment with Statistics New Zealand, of a framework and set of indicators to highlight the status of women including Māori women, that is also able to measure progress towards Government's Goals for Women
Preparation of a research strategy with government agencies to investigate critical inequalities for Māori women, which constitute barriers to their participation in society.

Further Work

The agreed actions are only part of the Government's response to this report and there are several critical issues for Māori women that require further action. It is important to note that Māori women have not yet been fully consulted on priorities for further work. Consultation with Māori women will occur during the development of a Women's Strategy by the Ministry of Women's Affairs over the next year. It is envisaged that Māori women will define their own aspirations and the pathways to achieving them. All further work should be based on government agencies working towards fulfilling their Treaty of Waitangi obligations to Māori women by upholding the principles of partnership, participation and protection.

The work requiring further action and identified in the Report includes:

improvements in the numeracy and literacy levels of Māori girls
a reduction in the suspension rate of Māori girls
monitoring of the new National Certificate of Educational Achievement to assess impacts on Māori girls
measures to increase Māori women's employment opportunities and participation in employment, including full-time employment.
Māori women's contribution to unpaid work, community based work and carer roles needs to be taken into consideration.
increasing Māori women's access to a range of educational and training opportunities
reducing the impact of violence on Māori women as violence has an effect on Māori women's activity and outcomes in a range of sectors
improvement in the health status of Māori women by:

provision of appropriate sexual and reproductive health services to young Māori women and girls
reduction in mortality rates for lung cancer, heart disease, and cervical cancer
reducing morbidity rates for asthma, meningococcal disease, immune disorders and acute respiratory infections
reduction in smoking by Māori women
encouraging a range of housing providers to meet Māori women's housing needs
meeting the housing needs of Māori women for emergency housing, refuge housing and transitional accommodation
research into the patterns of victimisation and offending for Māori women
ensuring victims services are appropriate for and responsive to Māori women
measures to reduce offending amongst Māori women (particularly young Māori women).

The Ministry of Women's Affairs' contribution to this work will be through consultation with Māori women and other agencies during the development of a Women's Strategy, and its work with key agencies to ensure analysis and monitoring is carried out to improve outcomes for Māori women.

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Last modified: May 28, 2008 12:14 am