Manatū Wāhine Ministry for Women and Business and Economic Research Ltd (BERL)’s recent report on the Māori women’s economy is a groundbreaking investigation of the economic, cultural, and wellbeing contributions of wāhine Māori to their whānau, businesses, and communities.
Te Ōhanga Wāhine Māori, The Māori Women’s Economy is one of the first comprehensive studies of indigenous women’s economy internationally. The report includes the first formal inclusion of mahi tūao – unpaid work – in the total value of a women’s economy.
In terms of paid work alone, the report reveals that wāhine Māori contributed $5.9 billion across all sectors of the economy in 2022. The largest total contributions were to business services ($1.9 billion value add) and social services ($1.8 billion value add). This overall contribution is more than doubled when accounting for mahi tūao.
Unpaid household services accounted for 26% of the value earned by wāhine Māori households after wages, social security and assistance. With the inclusion of this mahi tūao, the total value of wāhine Māori’s economic contributes sits at $12.5 billion, equivalent to 3.2% of Aotearoa New Zealand’s national production GDP.
Wāhine Māori’s economic contributions are underpinned by the role of wāhine Māori as strong leaders of cultural recovery and preservation. The report found that wāhine Māori place a high importance on cultural identity and whānau support, reflective of the historical and contemporary role of wāhine Māori as repositories of knowledge and drivers of the intergenerational transfer of knowledge, history, values and traditions.
The importance of supporting whānau for wāhine Māori was further underpinned by the findings around paid mahi. There is a growing number of wāhine Māori working in the social services sector, reflected by a 32% increase in wāhine Māori employees between 2013 and 2018. Greater caring responsibilities at home for wāhine Māori can also limit opportunities to participate in employment and education, contributing to wāhine Māori earning 20% less than non-Māori wāhine overall.
Wāhine Māori are less likely to be employed in highly-paid industries, such as engineering and technology, and are underrepresented in business. However, Māori are a fast-growing population, and wāhine Māori are estimated to comprise 22% of the total wāhine working-age population by 2043. While wāhine Māori only totalled 3.7% of employers or self-employed in 2018, this number is also on a steady increase. Wāhine Māori employers or self-employed grew by 31% over a five year period, an increase which is over four times that of non-Māori wāhine.
Read the full Te Ōhanga Wāhine Māori report through Manatū Wāhine – Ministry for Women to discover further insights in to the Māori women’s economy.