Education capital formation, employment, migration, gender, work-life balance and missing men - An IPS led research project

This three-year, $1.7 million, Foundation for Research, Science and Technology research programme is led by Paul Callister. It is a collaborative project involving Victoria and Waikato Universities and private sector researchers. The core research team consists of Richard Bedford, Robert Didham, Tahu Kukutai, Frances Leather, James Newell , Paul Hamer and Lindy Fursman. The project runs from July 2007 through to July 2010.

Project overview

Achievement within the education sector is a key determinant of participation in the labour market and many other measures of wellbeing. New Zealand’s education funders and providers are currently confronted by a gendered ‘education transition’ where there is a gap in both participation and achievement between women and men, especially within Maori and Pacific populations. This project is seeking to explain this transition and to address issues such as: how does the gap differ by geographic community; how are labour market participation and changes in the labour market influenced by this transition; and how can male educational achievement be improved. A range of secondary data, including Ministry of Education (MoE) data and information from the Census of Population and Dwellings, will be supplemented by case studies.

The issue of educational capital accumulation is linked to labour market participation, gendered migration, and work-life balance. Gender is a critical, but under-researched, variable when considering issues such as the ‘brain drain’/’brain exchange’, the ongoing connectedness of New Zealand’s Diaspora, how changes in New Zealand’s labour market may require a different mix of skills, and developing policies that attract high quality immigrants, hold talented New Zealanders within New Zealand and also attract back New Zealand’s most talented expatriates. Data from New Zealand and overseas censuses, migration flow data, Department of Labour (DoL) administrative data, and a survey of New Zealand expatriates, are being triangulated to explore the gender dimension of migration.

Changes in migration, education and participation in employment have important influences on living arrangements, fertility decisions, work-life balance decisions and, ultimately, on the ability to fully participate in society. Census based cohorts, supplemented by other data sources, are being used to explore behavioural consequences of changing pathways for women and men as they endeavour to enter and progress in the labour market, both in New Zealand and overseas; as they make choices about living arrangements; as they decide to have children; and as they negotiate work-life balances within families.

The project addresses wider data quality issues as well as actual changes for both men and women in education, employment, migration and family life. A group of young men has been increasingly ‘missing’ in official statistics. This has an impact on social policy analysis, including understanding disparities, working out mortality or unemployment rates, determining electoral boundaries and the allocation of fisheries resources. There is a group of men that is actually ‘missing’ in terms of educational participation and attainment, from family life, in labour market participation and in terms of reaching old age. The project contributes to work being undertaken by Statistics New Zealand to determine why men are missing in official statistics. The ultimate aim is to enhance the collection of reliable data and to improve population estimates.