4.4  Distributions of education, training and work experience by ethnicity (continued)

Figure 3 – Effective Education, Training and Work Experience Ages 16 to 21: Two-way Split in Youth Ethnicities

Notes: These data are taken from the 973 respondents in the CHDS who provided valid information for the purposes of this study. The probability density functions are estimated using a kernel smoother in STATA. These are the estimated distributions of the effective education, training and work experience between the ages of 16 and 21 for the two ethnic groups. This variable can exceed the time span of five years in some cases, because individuals may, for example, be working full-time and studying part-time or working part-time and studying full-time. They get ‘credit’ for both activities with this variable. Youth are defined as ‘Maori’ in this figure if they identify Maori as at least one of their ethnicities at age 21, and had at least one parental figure claiming Maori ancestry by age 14. All other youth are considered to be ‘non-Maori’.

Finally, Tables 8 and 9 show that how the ratio of actual to potential work experience changes with the level of potential work experience. We take the same five categories of potential work experience used at the bottom of Figures 1 and 2, and compute the mean levels of actual work experience within these intervals. These categorical means are computed for both the two-way and three-way splits in youth ethnicity. Although actual work experience generally increases with potential work experience, the relationship is far from uniform. The ratio of actual to potential work experience declines from greater than one to approximately one-half as we move from the lowest to highest category of potential work experience.

Figure 4 - Effective Education, Training and Work Experience Ages 16 to 21: Three-way Split in Youth Ethnicities

Notes: These data are taken from the 973 respondents in the CHDS who provided valid information for the purposes of this study. The probability density functions are estimated using a kernel smoother in STATA. These are the estimated distributions of the effective education, training and work experience between the ages of 16 and 21 for the three ethnic groups. This variable can exceed the time span of five years in some cases, because individuals may, for example, be working full-time and studying part-time or working part-time and studying full-time. They get ‘credit’ for both activities with this variable. Youth are defined as ‘Sole Maori’ in this figure if they identify Maori as their only ethnicity at age 21. Youth are defined as ‘Mixed Maori’ if they report both Maori and any other ethnicity, and had at least one parental figure claiming Maori ancestry by age 14. All other youth are considered to be ‘non-Maori’.

There are a couple of important points to mention about the results in Tables 8 and 9. First, note that the means of actual work experience are all greater than one for individuals with no more than one year of potential work experience across all ethnic groups. This indicates the prevalence of work while youth are enrolled in education and training programmes. Although the mean for non-Maori (1.601) is greater than the means for sole and mixed Maori (1.042 and 1.500, respectively), these differences are not statistically significant at a 10% level. (The small sample sizes for Maori groups within these potential work experience categories make it difficult for any ethnic differences to be statistically significant.)

** Maori mean significantly different from non-Maori mean at 1% level.

* Maori mean significantly different from non-Maori mean at 10% level.

Notes: These data are taken from the 973 respondents in the CHDS who provided valid information for the purposes of this study. Youth are defined as ‘Maori’ in this table if they identify Maori as at least one of their ethnicities at age 21, and had at least one parental figure claiming Maori ancestry by age 14. All other youth are considered to be ‘non-Maori’.