Human Rights, The Treaty of Waitangi and Governance | Institute of Policy Studies | Victoria University Wellington
 

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

This 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 has consisted of Richard Bedford, Robert Didham, Tahu Kukutai, Frances Leather, James Newell , Paul Hamer and Lindy Fursman. Over the 2009/2010 summer Zoe Lawton and Kate Stone also worked on this project.
The project commenced in July 2007.

Project overview

There are four main strands to this research:

Achievement within the education sector is a key determinant of participation in the labour market and many other measures of wellbeing. In New Zealand, as in other industrialised countries, there has been 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 has been seeking to explain this transition and consider ways of improving educational outcomes for males. To date a number of papers have been produced including: a discussion of whether it is useful to talk about male disadvantage in tertiary education, an examination of which tertiary institutions are educating young, low-skill Māori men a comparison of education trends in Australia and New Zealand, an examination of the occupational distribution of Maori residents of Australia and New Zealand and a discussion of the appropriateness and effectiveness of two possible solutions to relative male underachievement: recruiting more males teachers and implementing more single-sex schooling.  This part of the study uses a range of secondary data, including Ministry of Education data, information from the Census of Population and Dwellings and data from the Youth Connectedness project.

The issue of educational capital accumulation is then being 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,  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. Completed research includes:a case study of gendered Asian migration into New Zealand, a study of the changing characteristics of New Zealand doctors  and a consideration of the importance of lifestyle in relation to New Zealand expatriates, intentions to return to New Zealand. This section of the research draws on a range of data including New Zealand and overseas censuses, Department of Labour migration flow data and a survey of New Zealand expatriates.

Changes in migration, education and participation in employment have important influences on living arrangements, 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. This has included examining the possible growth of a domestic worker workforce who may increasingly care for the elderly and undertake the domestic work of ‘work rich’ households. A number of papers have been produced including a census based study of changes in paid work for mid-life couples and a study of the changing nature of young people’s transitions in New Zealand.

In 2008 the project began considering the impact on te reo Māori of trans-Tasman migration, with a particular view to establishing: whether the migration of such a large number of Māori to Australia inevitably includes the departure of many people skilled in or learning te reo and mātauranga Māori, and what if any impact on te reo this is having, how Māori are faring in maintaining te reo Māori in Australia, and to what extent return migration to New Zealand is motivated by a desire to learn te reo. This has resulted in a number of papers, including an article on the challenges for counting Māori in Australia .

Finally, the ‘missing men’ project has also been addressing wider data quality issues including issues around ethnic classifications in schools, children who may not be officially counted and ‘missing men’.  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 has also been contributing to work being undertaken by Statistics New Zealand to determine why men are missing in official statistics. The ultimate aim of this work is to enhance the collection of reliable data and to improve population estimates. Work in this area has included a paper on differing patterns of mortality for women and men and the running of a workshop considering research and policy issues in relation to male health.