2  Data and group characteristics 

This study uses a 50% sample of individual level data from the 1986 and 1996 New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings[3]. This allows analysis of changes in relative educational attainment and income levels over a decade of significant economic and policy change. Important for comparisons across time, both 1986 and 1996 were non-recession years with comparable levels of economic activity.

While the focus of the study is on Maori and Non-Maori comparisons, four ethnic categories of ‘Maori’, ‘Part-Maori’, ‘European’ and ‘Other’ are considered separately, where Maori refers to those who identify solely with the Maori ethnicity, and ‘Part-Maori’ refers to those who identify with both Maori and at least another ethnicity. ‘Other’ includes Pacific Island ethnicity, and also other non-European non-Maori immigrants. Immigration patterns since 1991 suggest that, relative to 1986, returns to higher education in 1996 for the ‘Other Ethnic’ return are likely to have been adversely affected by language and other barriers (see for example, Maani, 1999 and Winklemann and Winklemann, 1998). It is thus useful to separate this group in analyses from the ‘European’ ethnic group.

Table 1a and 1b show sample characteristics for males and females, respectively. In both 1996 and 1986 a larger proportion of the “all employed” Maori population had no school qualifications. A notably smaller proportion of the employed Maori labour force was engaged in ‘Managerial and Professional Occupations’. Maori males worked slightly fewer hours per week than any other group in 1986, and fewer than all except the ‘Other’ group in 1996. Maori were less likely than any other group to live in a major urban area. They were also less likely to be married than the European or ‘Other’ ethnic group.

Standard deviations in parentheses

Standard deviations in parentheses

A more comprehensive set of sample characteristics is provided in Appendix Tables A.1 and A.2 for males and females, respectively[4].

Figures 1 – 3 show the relationship between qualification levels and income (Figure 1), being in the managerial and professional occupations (Figure 2), and weekly hours worked per week (Figure 3), by ethnic group and gender in both 1986 and 1996. Tables corresponding to these figures are in Appendix B.

Figure 1 shows that for most qualification levels, the income gap (defined as the difference in mean annual gross income) between employed Maori and European males widened over the decade, as noted in Maani (2000). For females, differences among ethnic groups in average incomes for each qualification level were relatively small in both years, except for the lower incomes of members of the ‘Other’ ethnic group with university qualifications in 1996.

Figure 2 represents the proportion of the employed population engaged in managerial and professional occupations. The difference across ethnic groups for males with higher education has decreased significantly between 1986 and 1996. For Maori, Part-Maori and European females the difference had virtually disappeared by 1996, signalling the importance of educational attainment as a means of access to professional and managerial occupations.

Particularly for females, those with higher qualifications tended to work more hours than others in both years (see Figure 3). In addition, those with higher qualifications worked more hours in 1996 than in 1986 – consistent with the increased demand for skills noted earlier. As Maori are more concentrated in groups with lower qualifications, lower hours of work is clearly one explanation both of their lower incomes, and also of the increase in their relative disadvantage over time.

Figure 1- Income by highest educational qualification and ethnicity