Address 'Women on the Move' Project

Women's Affairs Minister Ruth Dyson
Address to ‘Nga Wahine Toa: Women on the Move’ Project
Te Toimairangi Marae (behind Basilica, cnr Ninth and Eye St) Invercargill 11.15am, Wednesday, 12 November 2003

Rau rangatira maa,
tenei te mihi ki a koutou i runga i te kaupapa o te ra.
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

[Distinguished guests, greetings to you gathered here for this purpose today. Greetings once, twice, three times to you all.]

Good morning and thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. I bring greetings from my colleagues Mark Peck and Mahara Okeroa.

I congratulate the Southern Institute of Technology and, in particular, Diane Gillespie, for incorporating this research project, ‘Nga Wahine Toa – Women on the Move’ into your women’s studies course.

And I commend everyone on the course and involved in the project. I can see that you have worked extremely hard, conducting research, reading around the topic, and analysing the issues facing New Zealand women who decide to return to education and/or employment, from your own and others’ experience.

Today is a further opportunity to develop strategies to resolve these issues, and I wish you all the best in the discussions that follow.

Women in education
I’d like to start by looking at women’s experience in education. Our most recent figures show that women make up 79 per cent of students in colleges of education, 71 per cent in wänanga, 56 per cent in universities and 55 per cent in polytechs .

In the 20-29 year old age group, nearly one in five women has a degree or higher level qualification, compared with one in seven men.

Women are also more likely to go back to school for second chance education. In 2002, 70 per cent of students over the age of 19 enrolled at high school were women.

Maori women are a particular success story. Throughout the 1990s, they increased their rate of enrolment in universities, polytechnics and wänanga more than any other group , a considerable achievement.

However, women’s enthusiasm for education probably won’t surprise you - after all, you are part of that same trend. I want to assure you that the government is committed to supporting your efforts.

In June, we released our education priorities for New Zealand. We have two clear goals:
·to build an education system that equips New Zealanders with 21st century skills, and
·to reduce the inequalities in educational achievement to make sure that all New Zealanders can reach their potential.

Tertiary Education Commission
We now have a new Tertiary Education Commission. Its job is to encourage New Zealanders to adopt learning as a way of life – and make it easy for them to do so. Not everyone needs a PhD, but we must all recognise the importance of life-long learning, both for personal development and for thriving, vibrant communities.

The Tertiary Education Strategy is a five-year plan to gear New Zealand for growth and success.
One of its goals is to improve the participation and achievement of women in areas where they tend to play too small a part, and particularly to empower Maori women and their communities.

Bridging education
One way to help women back into work and study is through bridging education, which provides courses and programmes for people who want to study at a tertiary level, but don’t have the traditional qualifications to do so.

Women are much bigger users of bridging education than men. Many find that, after time out to look after their families, they are not well qualified either to re-enter the workforce, or to take up further study.
Research being carried by the Manukau Institute of Technology on bridging education gives us some useful insights into how it affects women. Some of its preliminary findings are that:

·Bridging education needs to be very clear about what skills and capabilities students require to be successful in the course they’ve chosen.

·It must be positive, and make students feel good about their achievements.

·Information or advice about courses of study and how to plan them is often not easily available to women.

·Finding good, reliable, affordable childcare – and juggling the logistics of dropping off and picking up children, and coping when they’re sick - places a big stress on women and can take energy away from studying. I’m sure this is not news to many of you.

·Children can sometimes resent the attention their mother is putting into her studies, and partners may feel threatened by the women’s growing confidence, skills and success.

Cost of study
So, going back into study may be a great investment for a woman’s future, but it is not a decision that women take lightly. It also has financial implications. Most courses are not cheap, and women made up the majority of borrowers from the student loan scheme last year.

The bad news is that when women finish their study and go out into the workforce with their new qualifications, they will generally receive lower pay than men with the same qualifications.

You may think that the gender pay gap appears when women start to leave work to have children, and men stay on to progress up the career ladder.

But in fact this pay gap appears right from the start of a women’s career - before the time when breaks for childbearing are likely to be a factor. And it is most commonly seen between women and men with degrees and higher level qualifications.

As well as being inherently unfair, the gender pay gap means that women take longer than men to pay off student loans. The Ministry of Education estimates that women will take 12 years to pay off their loan, while for men the average is 8 years.

The government is aware of the problem, and we’ve been working hard to keep loans to a minimum. The latest Student Loan Report estimates that student debt will fall by $2.6 billion, thanks to the introduction of a scheme where students do not have to pay interest while they are studying, three years of fee freezes and a cap on course costs through the maxima system .

Technology
It is very clear now that, to become the smart, flexible knowledge society that we want to be, we have to stay at the forefront of technology. Shopping, studying, working, playing, and even chatting and making friends are increasingly happening via new technologies. It’s not just a case of ‘be there or be square’ – it’s a case of survival, and how well we will do as a country in the future.
Access to technology, and particularly to computers, is critical to our success as a country, and to people’s success in the workplace.

There’s a big gap between those who have good access to computer technology, and those who don’t. We call it the digital divide , and it is one of the key issues for New Zealand over the next few years.

Some of the groups identified as most at risk of being left behind are Mäori and Pacific people, rural people, sole parents (most of whom are women), older women and - you guessed it – women and girls.

It’s vital that women don’t become marginalised by not understanding new technologies. The government has been doing some innovative work in conjunction with technology partners, and in this year’s Budget, we announced that we’ll be investing almost $78 million over the next four years to develop technology in the school and early childhood sectors.

Women in work
What about women in work?

We now make up nearly half of the labour force – 47 per cent. However, women still tend to do different sorts of jobs from men. The most common jobs for women are sales assistant, clerk, secretary, nurse, teacher, cleaner and caregiver.
Most are at the lower end of the pay scales . While there are more and more women doing well in technical and professional areas, that gender pay gap I mentioned earlier is still strong.

Many women opt for part time work – 72 per cent of all part-time workers are women. This reflects women’s wider responsibilities. Whether it’s looking after family members, cooking on the marae, organising community fundraisers or delivering meals on wheels, unpaid and voluntary work reduces many women’s availability for paid work, and limits both their earning power and bargaining power in the labour market.

Perhaps that’s why more and more New Zealand women are going into business for themselves. Thirty-eight per cent of entrepreneurs are women, and this is growing. A government report called Workforce 2010 reported that self-employment has been gradually rising, from 9 per cent in the mid-1980s to 13 per cent by 2000.

Women’s self-employment has risen even faster, perhaps because it offers more flexibility and more potential to balance the demands of work and family life.

We are committed to working towards a fair and equitable society, which is innovative and growth–oriented. We want it to be inclusive, so that everyone is valued and can contribute, and sustainable – so we can build for the future . For us to achieve that, women must get a better deal in terms of economic autonomy.

That’s why we appointed a taskforce earlier this year, headed by Diana Crossan, which will report back next March with recommendations on how to advance pay and employment equity within the public service, initially concentrating on the health and education sectors. We hope that it will serve as a model for other employers in the private sector.

We’re also committed to Equal Employment Opportunities for women. EEO programmes encourage family friendly workplaces, and reduce disadvantages to women as a result of their family responsibilities.

In 2000 we brought in the Employment Relations Act, which will benefit women by making the wage bargaining process much more fair. It also protects women against discrimination of various kinds, including sexual harassment.

Last year we strengthened the EEO Trust set up in 1991 to promote these programmes and practices in workplaces throughout New Zealand.
Some of the things it does include helping to fund childcare facilities provided by employers, promoting out of school care for children, giving employers ideas and strategies on how to value working parents and keep them in the workforce, and promoting guidelines on how to support women so that they can breastfeed at work.

We have also appointed the first EEO Commissioner, based within the Human Rights Commission.

Other support
There is further support – both practical and financial - for women wanting to return to second-chance education and the paid workforce, through organisations like the New Horizons for Women Trust, the NZ Federation of Graduate Women, the Maori Education Trust, Business and Professional Women and Women in Technology.

What this shows is that there are many capable women ready and willing to help other women who need a hand up.

Government departments are playing their part too. Work and Income have a Work Start Grant to cover the cost of going to job interviews or starting a new job.

The Department of Labour’s Community Employment Group also works with people who face the most barriers, to help them become self-sufficient. I see that they have contributed funding for this gathering today.

CEG has developed a women’s strategy which aims, among other things, to update women’s skills, build on cottage industries and arts and culture, provide mentoring and good role models, encourage women into new ventures and above all, encourage them into the workforce.

There are already some great examples of women who are benefiting from this scheme, including a Te Kuiti-based trust that is developing high fashion fibre from New Zealand flax, and a Lower Hutt-based recruitment agency that’s helping Pacific people move into management positions.

Childcare/early childhood education
Many women going into work or study need practical help with childcare. The 1998 NZ Childcare Survey found that the cost of early childhood education and care was the single biggest factor preventing mothers from going back to paid work. In 2001, the government increased the number of childcare hours that can be claimed from 30 to 37.5, and this year increased it again, up to 50 hours per week - a 66 per cent increase.

The Ministry of Education has released a 10-year strategic plan on early childhood education called Pathways to the Future, Nga Huarahi Arataki. It aims to ensure that the groups most commonly missing out get better access and encouragement. They include Maori, Pacific, low income and rural children.

We’ve also made positive changes to Out of School Care programmes, known as OSCAR. The NZ Childcare Survey told us that around half of all school-age children have care arrangements during the school holidays – and that women are more likely than men to have to take time off during the holidays.

At last count, around 50,000 children attended OSCAR programmes. Many more people who wanted affordable programmes couldn’t get them.

Last year, we strengthened OSCAR programmes by allocating almost $30 million to them over the next four years, and a further $6.5 million to help long-term beneficiaries with children access childcare so that they could more easily make the transition to paid employment.

Work-life balance
One of the big issues we all face is work-life balance – our efforts to ensure that paid work interacts positively with all the other activities important in life: time with families, unpaid and voluntary work, leisure and personal development.

Work-life balance is not just an issue for women. Overall, a decade of a deregulated and competitive environment has reduced the quality of life for many workers of both genders. A lot of men have more stress in their lives than is healthy. But women have paid the greater price because of the additional level of stress that accompanies our role as carers.

The Department of Labour’s Future of Work programme aims to increase understanding of the way work is likely to develop in the future, and what that will mean for us all. In August, the government set up a steering group of various agencies to advance the issue of work-life balance. It is doing some interesting work, and we expect to have a report on its findings and some policy advice going to Cabinet around the middle of next year.

CEDAW
As Minister of Women’s Affairs, I presented New Zealand’s fifth report to the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in New York in June.

We do this every five years, and it was good to be able to report on some major leaps forward for New Zealand women, including the introduction of 12 weeks paid parental leave.
Other progress includes:
·halting the privatisation of publicly funded health and social services,
·taking a whole of government approach to reducing inequalities between Mäori women and other women in New Zealand,
·improvements to our human rights legislation,
·the establishment of an EEO Commissioner,
·the passing of the Prostitution Reform legislation, and
·the requirement that all papers that go before the Cabinet Social Development Committee must carry with them a gender implication statement, explaining how that policy will impact on women.

These are just some of the highlights for New Zealand women, which show we haven’t been sitting on our hands!

Women’s Action Plan
Finally, I want to tell you about the Women’s Action Plan, to be launched in March 2004. The plan has been developed by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, in partnership with the National Council of Women, Maori Women’s Welfare League and Pacifica, after talking to women all around the country.

I attended many of the consultation meetings, and they gave me an excellent insight into the big issues facing women.
The plan groups them into three key priorities - economic sustainability, work/life balance and well-being – and includes a range of actions by government departments to address them.

This brings me back to your research, and the changes you would like to see. I hope you can see that the government shares your concerns, and that we are addressing many of them. I commend your energy and determination to make things better for women in New Zealand. I appreciate the support and the challenges you and other women give me, and I look forward to continuing to work with you.

Thank you.