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Published: MARCH 2008

This is an annual report on female labour market outcomes. It focuses on changes for females over the past five years.

Female Labour Market Outcomes HTML | [PDF 103 KB, 14 pages]

Labour market disparities between women and men have in general decreased in the past five years.
Disparities between women of different ethnic groups have generally declined over the past five years with participation and unemployment rates between the groups converging.
Female wages have been increasing steadily in the past 5 years.
The disparity between male and female qualification levels has been reducing over the past 20 years and is likely to continue to decrease further as young women are more highly-skilled than their male counterparts.
New Zealand compares favourably with other OECD countries in terms of female unemployment, participation and wages.

Female labour market outcomes for the year to December 2007

Women are more likely to work part-time than men and as a result work fewer hours on average, a pattern that has been relatively stable over the past five years.
Female labour force participation rates are markedly lower than male rates for those aged 25–39 as females are more likely not to be in the labour force as they are caring for children. Female labour market participation rates increase considerably after age 40.

There is still a significant gender pay gap between men and women with estimates of the gap ranging from 12 - 16 percentage points.
The majority of females work in semi-skilled occupations. Consequently females have a lower overall skill profile than males and thus receive lower wages. In addition, over the past five years there has been higher growth in semi and lower-skilled jobs for women than for males.

For further information please contact the Labour Market Analysis team