Brian Easton

Labour Employment Work in New Zealand, 1994, p.206-213.

Keywords: Labour Studies; Maori;

Executive Summary

* The Maori is in an inferior position in the labour force compared to the non-Maori.

* The Maori are more likely to be Not-in-the-Labour Force and more likely to be unemployed.

* When these two effects are combined together the Maori unemployment rate is not the 2.7 times the non-Maori rate that the official definitions showed in 1991, but 3.9 for males and 4.5 times for females.

* The analysis confirms that when the Maori is employed, they are more likely to be in the secondary part of the labour market, that is with low quality jobs in terms of renumeration, working conditions, career opportunities, and job security.

* Crucial for understanding the labour market is the flux between the unemployed, those not-in-the-labour market, and those in secondary employment. This churning means there is a dynamic process going on.

* Because of the higher incidence of not-in-the-labour force, and in secondary employment it is unwise to focus on Maori unemployment. At issue is the high proportion of the Maori in the secondary labour market in comparison with the non-Maori. Some policies merely shift people between the different parts of the secondary labour market.

* Econometric work suggests that only one third of the difference between Maori and non-Maori employment participation can be explained by the personal characteristics measured in the population census.

* The report acknowledges there may be other personal characteristics not measured, which also have an influence.

* However it seems likely that the most important determinants of the differences are social variables, summarized in the concept of “maoriness”. A possible practical example is that it is known that the most important source of job recruitment involves family and friends. The Maori is handicapped in doing this because of their lower employment rates, but also possibly because the Maori network is not as geared as the non-Maori family to carry out this task.

Address to the 1994 St Andrews Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, What Future the Family?, November 3, 1994.

Keywords Social Policy

During the nineteenth century, three political economies – ways of organizing the economy and society – competed for New Zealand.(1) The Maori political economy, although initially successful as the indigenous people took up the challenge of the new opportunities from European contact, faded in the later part of the century as the Maori population and ownership of resources declined from war, disease, alienation of land, and loss of rangatiratanga. I shall have little more to say about the Maori, for theirs is a story which deserves more space and competence than I have here.