Statistics on Women's Employment

NACEW has always strived to ensure its advice to the Minister of Labour is evidence based. In its early years, obtaining information was problematic as the breakdown of statistics by gender was not consistent.^[10] By 1970, NACEW realised the information they needed was:

• continuous statistics on trends in women's employment, and estimates of numbers of employable women
• continuous research on present and future employment opportunities for women, and the need for retraining schemes
• other research on influences affecting trends in women's employment, such as social attitudes.

The Council spent its early years ensuring statistical evidence was available so they could advise the Minister confidently. Much evidence has been collated over the years and key works are included below.

In 1972, the Research and Planning Division of the Department of Labour published Facts and Figures '71: Women in the Work Force^[11] with information on female participation rates, occupations in which women were employed, vacancies and available training courses.^[12]

This same year, NACEW was confident about its views on the employment of women and prepared this statement:

• A further significant increase in the proportion of women in the labour force is desirable if women are to make their full contribution both economically and socially.
• Employers and trade unions should ensure that there is equality of opportunity in employment but women themselves must take advantage of these opportunities by preparing in greater numbers for a wider range of occupations and accepting positions of greater responsibility.
• Women with family commitments should be able to choose whether to enter paid employment or not.^[13]

In 1973, the Society for Research on Women (SROW), with the Department of Labour, published Employers' Attitudes: Work Opportunity for Women^[14], to identify the work opportunities employers saw as appropriate for the increasing number of women entering the workforce. The full report was abridged to a smaller booklet Why employ women?^[15] in the same year.

NACEW's submission to the Task Force on Economic and Social Planning in 1976 gave an overview of women's current employment, including detailed trends such as the percentage of married women in the workforce, which had increased from 3.5% in 1926 to 12.9% in 1956 and to 26% in 1971.

NACEW also took an interest in the study of women's participation in trade unions publishing Women in Trade Unions: A Case Study of Participation in New Zealand in 1979.^.[16] This study showed that active involvement in trade unions' affairs was lower for women than men, and women were also under-represented in leadership positions in unions.

In September 1989, the Council held a conference on women's employment, which informed the publication Beyond the Barriers: The State, the Economy and Women's Employment, 1984-1990 in 1990.^[17] The book provides an historical overview of women's involvement in the labour market and details their participation rates and occupational segregation. The second part provides an analysis of monetary, fiscal, industry, state sector and industrial relations policy from 1984-1990. The Council prepared policy recommendations to accompany the report to the Minister of Employment.

Following this work, the Council turned its attention to the Employment Contracts Act 1991. They wanted to assess whether amendments to the legislation would be necessary to protect the employment conditions of women. NACEW monitored its impact on women coupled with the effects of restructuring, a tighter economic environment, and the changing nature of employment at the time.

Since the 1990s, as the breakdown of statistics by gender and ethnicity has improved, NACEW has not needed to commission reports on the general status of women in employment but has been able to concentrate on a more detailed breakdown of statistics in relation to key issues for NACEW.