Female Labour Market Factsheet – June 2008

August 2008

This factsheet reports key female labour market information for the year to June 2008.  All data are sourced from the Household Labour Force Survey released by Statistics New Zealand.  Detailed gender data is not seasonally adjusted and so all figures are averaged over a year to reduce seasonal variation and sample error.

Summary of the female labour market for the year to June 2008

Long description for Female Labour Market Summary

Participation

The participation rate for females was 61.7% for the year to June 2008.  This is slightly higher than the female participation rate of 61.6% for the year to June 2007, and is higher than the 57.4% in the year to June 1999.  The female participation rate is below the national annual average participation rate of 68.3%.

Employment         

Employment growth for females has been high at 2.5% per annum on average since June 1999, and 1.5% for the year to June 2008.  This expansion in employment was higher than the economy-wide average of 2.3% since 1999 and 1.1% for the year to June 2008.

Unemployment

The unemployment rate for females was 3.8% for the year to June 2008.  This is lower than the 4.0% recorded for the year to June 2007, and is down from the 7.0% for the year to June 1999.  The female unemployment rate remains higher than the overall annual average rate (3.6%).

Ethnicity

The female participation rate was highest for European women (63.1%), followed by Maori women (61.3%) and Pacific women (55.9%) for the year to June 2008.  Maori and Pacific women have enjoyed a larger than average fall in their unemployment rates over the last nine years when compared to other ethnicities falling to 7.9% and 7.6% respectively.  However, the unemployment rates for Maori and Pacific women still remain well above the annual average rate for all females of 3.8%. 

Age

Female participation rates are lower than male rates for nearly all age groups but the difference is particularly pronounced for women in their late 20s and 30s.  The participation rate of women of main childbearing age (25-39) has risen in the last nine years from 68.8% for the year to June 1999 to 72.7% for the year to June 2008.  This compares to a participation rate of 92.4% for males of the same age.