This paper examines the impact of tuition subsidies on tertiary education outcomes in a setting where financial barriers are already substantially reduced. We study the introduction of New Zealand’s Fees-Free policy, which eliminated first-year tuition fees, in a system where tuition is financed through widely accessible student loans that require no upfront payment and are interest-free for borrowers who re
main in the country, and where means-tested allowances provide non-repayable support toward living costs for some students.
The AUT Migrant and Refugee Health Research Centre (MRHRC) and the New Zealand Policy Research Institute (NZPRI) were pleased to co-host a symposium focused on advancing equity in migrant and refugee health through the lens of social determinants.
The event brought together 250 researchers, community leaders, professionals and practitioners, and policymakers to share innovative work, strengthen partnerships, and explore pathways to improve health outcomes and equity for migrant and refugee communities in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally.
Childhood immunisation coverage in New Zealand has fallen since 2016, with the decline accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using administrative data from Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure, we examine determinants of immunisation uptake and how these have changed over time. We find that the likelihood of being fully immunised is lower among Māori children, later-born children, and children in lower-income households. We also identify weaker connection to primary care, particularly non-enrolment with a Primary Health Organisation, as an important factor associated with lower uptake. Although observed characteristics changed over time, these changes explain only a small share of the overall decline in uptake, suggesting an important role for unobserved factors. Finally, we find that parental COVID-19 vaccination and maternal vaccinations during pregnancy are strongly associated with children’s uptake.
View the working paperIn many countries, the workforce is becoming more diverse. Migration, shifting population composition and changing gender norms have altered who is in the workforce and how workplaces are organised. New Zealand is a clear example. It has a high share of foreign-born workers, an ethnically diverse population, a high female labour force participation rate, and comparatively flexible labour market institutions. These features raise an important question: does workforce diversity support firm performance? We draw on linked employer–employee microdata to estimate firm-level productivity and examine its relationship with gender and ethnic diversity. We find both ethnic and gender diversity are positively related to firm productivity. The magnitudes are economically meaningful and sit toward the upper end of those reported in the international literature.
This paper explores changes in occupational segregation in New Zealand using Census data from 1976 to 2023. It finds occupational segregation by gender in NZ has declined steadily since the mid-1970s, indicating a gradual convergence in the types of jobs held by men and women. This was driven mostly by changes in gender composition within occupations (more women entering previously male-dominated occupations) than changes in the occupational mix (for example, contraction of manufacturing and clerical work). The paper discusses the implications of these findings for pay equity in New Zealand.
This report examines whether Māori and NZ European offenders with nearly identical first-time drink-driving offences receive different sentences. Using more than 10,000 cases from the IDI (2008–2013) and controlling for alcohol readings to fix offence severity, the study focuses on directly comparable offenders with no prior court appearances. Māori are three times more likely than NZ Europeans to receive a community-based sentence in the raw data and remain twice as likely after adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic factors. Disparities vary across District Courts, with some showing markedly larger gaps, while Pacific Peoples receive similar outcomes to NZ Europeans. The findings suggest that ethnic sentencing differences persist even when offender characteristics and offence seriousness are held constant.
The World Internet Project (New Zealand) (WIPNZ) is a longitudinal survey investigating New Zealanders' usage of, and attitudes towards the internet. It is part of an international project that compares the uptake and social impacts of ICT in more than 30 partner countries and tracks the trends that occur.
Funder(s): InternetNZ
New Zealand faces major housing challenges, including shortages, high costs, and poor-quality homes. Kāinga Ora, the government agency leading social housing and urban development, has built nearly 10,000 new homes since 2018 and plans to add 35,000 more over the next 15 years. This research evaluates the wellbeing impacts of Kāinga Ora’s urban regeneration projects, using administrative data from Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure to measure outcomes across education and labour markets, health, and crime and safety. Applying a staggered difference-in-differences approach to Auckland data from 2018–2021, the study finds no significant short-term effects on area-level wellbeing overall, though stronger effects appear among social housing residents and those in areas of high regeneration intensity. Health impacts are mixed, and crime shows a small reduction. These results likely reflect temporary disruption during ongoing regeneration, but they offer valuable early evidence to guide future policy. The Wellbeing Outcomes Framework developed in this study provides a foundation for tracking longer-term wellbeing impacts as projects are completed.
This research project examines the relationship between birth order and early childhood environment. Preliminary findings indicate that later-born children are more frequently exposed to infectious diseases and experience higher rates of hospitalisation for conditions such as whooping cough and influenza during their first months of life. At the same time, uptake of maternal immunisations declines with each subsequent pregnancy, meaning that the children who would benefit most from maternal protection are less likely to receive it.
This report provides the most detailed analysis to date of pay gaps between Aotearoa New Zealand’s Ethnic Communities and NZ Europeans. Using data from Stats NZ’s Household Labour Force Survey (2016–2024) and the Integrated Data Infrastructure, it finds that Ethnic Communities face an average pay gap of 7.2%. Outcomes vary widely across subgroups: Asian and Latin American workers experience wage penalties of up to 14%, while Continental European, Middle Eastern, and African+ workers often earn more than NZ Europeans. Despite generally higher education levels and favourable demographic profiles, many groups still face unexplained pay disparities, highlighting the potential role of structural barriers in the labour market.
This studies examines long-term trends in occupational segregation in New Zealand by gender and assesses the role of occupational structure versus workforce composition.
This study examines how the wage premiums to tertiary education in New Zealand evolved between 2009 and 2024 using HLFS data. It finds a long-term decline in premiums—especially at the bachelor and certificate levels—while postgraduate qualifications still yield higher rewards. Certificate-level premiums are very low or even negative in many sectors. Rather than a post-pandemic collapse, the study reveals a structural trend of increasing dispersion in returns, with premiums now depending more heavily on qualification type, industry, and position within the wage distribution. These findings raise questions about the consistent economic value of tertiary education across groups and sectors.
This study examines the impact of residential care subsidies on mortality among aged residential care (ARC) facility residents in New Zealand. All applicants for residential care subsidies must undergo an interrail Home Care (HC) assessment before entering an ARC facility, providing a unique snapshot of individuals’ health status before facility entry. Preliminary findings suggest that conditioning on demographic, socioeconomic and pre-entry health characterises, subsidy recipients experience significantly lower mortality rates than non-recipients: respectively, 5.3, 3.7, 3 and 2.3 percentage points lower (17.1%, 7.5%, 4.8% and 3.1% compared to mortality rates among the non-recipients) in the first four years following HC assessment.
This research project examines the relationship between birth order and early childhood environment. Preliminary findings indicate that later-born children are more frequently exposed to infectious diseases and experience higher rates of hospitalisation for conditions such as whooping cough and influenza during their first months of life. At the same time, uptake of maternal immunisations declines with each subsequent pregnancy, meaning that the children who would benefit most from maternal protection are less likely to receive it.
This paper investigates how marital status influences child penalties — defined as the negative labour market outcomes mothers face following the birth of a child. It is the first to explore this relationship using administrative data. The findings reveal that mothers experience substantial and persistent penalties in employment and earnings for up to seven years after childbirth. In contrast, fathers' labour market outcomes remain largely unchanged. For mothers who divorced within seven years after the birth of their first child, employment returned to pre-birth levels.
This report compares crime victimisation rates between LGBTQ+ individuals and the general population in Aotearoa New Zealand, using data from the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey (NZCVS). LGBTQ+ individuals report substantially higher rates of victimisation in the past 12 months — 45.5% compared to 31.8% for non-LGBTQ+ individuals. This difference hardly changes even after accounting for sociodemographic differences (e.g., age or location of residence). LGBTQ+ individuals are also likelier to attribute their victimisation to their sexual orientation or gender identity and report more severe impacts, such as physical injuries and work absences.
This report analyses data from the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey, combined with administrative records, to explore how victimisation impacts employment, earnings, and health. Results show that victims, particularly of interpersonal violence and serious offences, experience significant declines in both employment and earnings, with these effects lasting for up to three years. Victims also see an increase in benefit receipt, and while injury claims rise, the impact tends to be short-lived.
This paper provides new evidence on the economic outcomes of transgender and gender diverse people in New Zealand. Using confidential linked administrative data, the paper finds that gender diverse people are younger than both transgender and cisgender people and are more highly educated than transgender people.
View the working paperThis project uses administrative data to track the labour market and wellbeing outcomes of learners who participated in vocational education and training in 2014. The research focuses on understanding learners and their trajectories, including their likelihood to work in an industry related to their studies. We compare learners to individuals without vocational education post-school qualifications after two, five, and ten years to understand the impact of vocational education and training.
Labour market report: View the report
Wellbeing report: View the report
This report uses data from the longitudinal Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) study tracking the health and development of a cohort of children born in 2009-2010, to investigate the intergenerational transmission of human capital by studying the relationship between mothers’ educational attainment and children’s cognitive skills (vocabulary, reading, and overall cognitive skills at age 8 years). Results show that mothers’ education is strongly linked to children’s cognitive skills – the higher the mothers’ educational attainment, the better children’s cognitive skills are, on average.
This journal article analyses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on earnings progression for underutilised workers, with a focus on underemployed workers. It uses data from the NZ Household Labour Force Survey and Stats NZ's Integrated Data Infrastructure. Economic shocks usually hit vulnerable workers the hardest. But this research suggests that the pandemic was different, with the gap in employment and earnings between underemployed workers and fully-utilised workers decreasing. This paper discusses the role that government policy may have played.
Workplace violence and harassment are increasing in the mostly female-dominated homecare industry. Despite this, there is a significant lack of research on the experiences of Pacific homecare workers, many of whom are temporary migrants and work in settings affected by racist attitudes and policies stemming from the historical and current labour market and migration policies in New Zealand and Australia. This article suggests a new research and policy approach to workplace violence that focuses on Pacific voices and culture to improve how to address and prevent violence and harassment experienced by Pacific homecare workers.
This report provides a descriptive examination of gender and ethnicity pay gaps at the industry level in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). We employ survey and administrative data to estimate industry pay gaps between 2016 and 2022, and then explore the structural and contextual factors driving these gaps.
This presentation summarises findings from research that examines the relationship between financial well-being and sexual orientation in the United States using data from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking for 2019-2022. The study finds that lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals face significantly more financial difficulties than their heterosexual counterparts, a trend that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. The disparities are evident in various financial well-being measures, including retirement savings, emergency funds, credit card and education debts, and the use of alternative financial services like payday loans.
This journal article is a qualitative descriptive study on the perceptions and experiences of Chinese and Indian migrant mothers accessing maternal and early childhood healthcare services. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted and data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
This journal article looks into the collaborative efforts to foster inclusive research practices in the Oceania region. It serves dual purposes. Firstly, the authors advocate for Pacific and international business (IB) researchers to consider adopting inclusive research practices, particularly regarding Pacific and indigenous populations. Secondly, the authors argue that decolonisation presents conflicting challenges, demonstrating that the authors still have a long way to go regarding the decolonisation agenda within academia, the university, IB and broader society.
This presentation summarises findings from research that examines the effects of New Zealand's COVID-19 vaccination mandates on vaccination uptake among mandated healthcare, education and corrections workers and on healthcare workers’ labour market outcomes.
This presentation summarises findings from research that examines the labour market effects of a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), up to four years after the injury. Results show that suffering a mTBI has negative effects on both employment and earnings.
This presentation summarises findings from research that analyses the victimisation prevalence of LGBTQ+ individuals compared to non-LGBTQ+ individuals.
This presentation summarises findings from research that examines whether residents were worse-off in areas where social housing and urban development were taking place.
This poster was presented by Linda Kirkpatrick at the 2024 NZ Association of Economists (NZAE) conference. The poster examined whether residents were worse-off in areas where social housing and urban development were taking place.
This paper examines the relationship between financial well-being and sexual orientation in the United States using data from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking for 2019-2022. It finds that lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals face significantly more financial difficulties than their heterosexual counterparts, a trend that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. The disparities are evident in various financial well-being measures, including retirement savings, emergency funds, credit card and education debts, and the use of alternative financial services like payday loans.
View the working paperThis article explores the differences in COVID-19 lockdown policies across U.S. states in 2020, analysing how elections and political affiliations influenced these decisions. Results show that Republican-led states, especially those facing upcoming elections, implemented less strict lockdown measures compared to Democratic-led states.
This article aims to draw attention to the aspirations for literacy policy and practice described in Māori-led responses to the Ministry of Education’s Adult Literacy Strategy and subsequent policy statements and embodied in the practices of some tertiary organisations. The Māori view of literacy includes literacy in te reo Māori and English but extends beyond alphabetic text, emphasising embodied practices focused on reading the world culturally, spatially, and socially. We argue that current adult literacy policy does not enable a Māori perspective of literacy to flourish.
The paper examines the connections between adult literacy and numeracy viewed from a sociomaterial perspective, wellbeing outcomes, and the Living Standards Framework (LSF) – a wellbeing-focused framework underpinning all policy in Aotearoa New Zealand.
This report examines mainly Māori adults’ experiences as they navigate their lives and develop their literacy and numeracy skills towards their aspirations for themselves and their families.
This case study report examines the framing and application of literacy measures in contemporary New Zealand culture. More specifically, it is about the lives and learning of wāhine (women) Māori (the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand) within that culture and their attitudes towards, and complex relationships with, literacy as it is defined in their own lives and in the current setting.
This research summary outlines the background, purpose and key findings/insights of a project titled In their voice: Adult learners’ perspectives on literacy and numeracy, learning and wellbeing.
This paper examines the life-course trajectories of a cohort of NZ youth who participated in PISA 2009 when they were 15-years old by using linked administrative data to track their outcomes until 2020. PISA is a worldwide study that assesses key competencies of 15-year-old students, with a focus on reading, mathematics and science. This paper compares the outcomes of the nearly one-fifth of NZ students who were assessed at below Level 2 in either reading or mathematics (or both), which the OECD considers to be a ‘baseline’ level of proficiency, with those at or above this baseline. It finds that students with low measured skills have less favourable outcomes in a number of areas. They have lower rates of participation in, and completion of, further education. They also have lower employment rates and average earnings, with labour market differences between the low-skills and above-baseline groups being particularly stark among women.
This paper examines the life-course trajectories of NZ adults across different skill levels in literacy and numeracy. This is done by using administrative data and skill information collected in a PIAAC survey of the working-age adult population (aged 16-65 years). The outcomes of the one-fifth of NZ working-age adults who were assessed at below Level 2 in either literacy or numeracy (or both) are compared with those at or above this baseline. Results show that adults with low measured skills have less favourable outcomes in a number of areas. They have lower rates of educational attainment, lower employment rates and average earnings, higher rates of hospitalisation, and higher rates of criminal offending and convictions.
This paper uses population-wide administrative data to examine adult literacy and numeracy (L+N) programmes in New Zealand and its effect on individuals' labour market outcomes, further education and training, and workplace accidents.
This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on childhood vaccination coverage in NZ using population-wide administrative data. The study compares children who became eligible for immunisation during the pandemic to earlier born cohorts and finds that compared to pre-pandemic levels, the number of timely immunisations dropped during the initial phase of the pandemic. This decrease was especially pronounced among older children (aged four).
The aim of this paper is to derive projections of the average literacy score attained by the population, by gender and Māori /non-Māori, for an aggregate set of New Zealand regions. The estimated projections in this research illustrate a slow, gradual change in literacy levels over time, accompanied by a widening gap between regions' levels of literacy proficiency. The gap between Māori and non-Māori literacy scores (favouring non-Māori) is comparatively large and constant across the projection periods.
This report uses data from the IDI to examine examine KiwiSaver contributions and how these differ by gender and ethnicity, in addition to other demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.
This paper analyses the effect of New Zealand's lockdowns and wage subsidy schemes on parental employment. Using tax records, this study compares the employment patterns of parents from the pandemic period (treatment group) to similar parents from a recent pre-pandemic period (control group). Results show a 1-2 percentage point decline in the likelihood of being employed within the first six months of the pandemic for mothers whose youngest child is aged between one and 12. There were hardly any significant changes in employment for fathers.
View the working paperThis paper provides the first evidence on sexual orientation and earnings in New Zealand (NZ), one of the most inclusive countries for LGBTQ+ people in the world. We use confidential linked census-tax data to compare outcomes for individuals in same-sex couples versus different-sex couples. We find patterns of earnings differentials in NZ that are strikingly similar to those documented in other developed countries: men in same-sex couples earn about 7 percent less than otherwise similar men in different-sex couples while women in same-sex couples earn about 6 percent more than otherwise similar women in different-sex couples.
As part of its COVID-19 policy response, the New Zealand government implemented vaccination mandates as a condition of ongoing employment for certain workers. This paper examines the effect of these mandates on vaccination uptake among mandated healthcare, education and corrections workers and on healthcare workers’ labour market outcomes. This is enabled by New Zealand’s linked population-wide administrative data, which includes a comprehensive national COVID-19 vaccination register linked to tax records to identify employment outcomes.
Labour underutilisation has large negative implications both at the micro and macroeconomic level resulting in substantial loss of human capital, productivity, efficiency and overall well-being. This study compares individual, household, and work characteristics of underutilised and fully utilised workers, and examines how persistent experiences of underutilisation are. It also considers the reasons for underutilisation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Sustainability Business Index is the first of its kind in Slovenia. It enables companies in the small, open, and export-oriented Slovenian economy to monitor and evaluate their sustainability-related activities in a transparent and comprehensive way. This study analyses the responses of participant companies and shows that moral motives strongly influence responsibility strategy, acting as a mediator for environmental/social practices. Financial health negatively moderates the strategy–practices relationship in the environmental model, suggesting sustainability isn’t limited to financially healthy firms.
This qualitative journal article examines the marked decrease in the uptake of routine childhood vaccinations since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among Māori and Pacific children. The researchers undertook culturally informed interviews and discussions with Māori and Pacific caregivers and healthcare professionals to understand their perceptions of routine (nationally recommended) childhood vaccines. The findings conclude that to improve uptake and immunization experiences for whānau, Māori and Pacific-led vaccination strategies should be embedded in immunization service delivery.
View the journal article here
This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on childhood vaccination coverage in NZ using population-wide administrative data. The study compares children who became eligible for immunisation during the pandemic to earlier born cohorts and finds that the initial phase of the pandemic had, on average, small or nil effects on timely immunisation at the four infancy events, but a large effect at the 4-year event of -15 percentage points.
This presentation summarises findings from research that uses data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure to analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine childhood immunisation coverage in Aotearoa. Results show that the COVID-19 pandemic had small or nil effects on the uptake of the infancy events (6 weeks, 3 months, 5 months, 15 months) but a large negative effect on the uptake of the 4-year event.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, there has been a decrease in the uptake of routine (publicly funded and nationally recommended) childhood vaccinations since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among Māori and Pacific children. Suboptimal and inequitable immunisation coverage poses serious risks to whānau (family) health. We aimed to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced what Māori and Pacific whānau and healthcare professionals thought about routine vaccines and their suggestions to make immunisation services better. This presentation summarises some of the findings from this study.
This paper investigated whether having a child immunised at a prior schedule genuinely increases the likelihood of vaccinating the child at the subsequent schedule. It uses longitudinal data from the Growing Up in New Zealand study and applies a dynamic random-effects model that also controls for the initial immunisation status. Results show that having a child immunised at the previous schedule increases the likelihood of having the child immunised at the next schedule by, on average, 20.4 percentage points compared to those who are not immunised in the previous schedule. This likelihood is greater for Māori (by 5 percentage points) and also greater for mothers that report being discouraged from having their child immunised during the antenatal period (by 10 percentage points).
This research note explores the factors contributing to ethnic pay gaps in New Zealand. The gaps between the average (as well as median) hourly wages for the European workforce relative to Māori and Pacific workers are substantial. Results show that, regardless of gender, differences in job-related factors go some way to help explain the Pacific pay gap, and for women – educational differences also play a role. However, even after accounting for these observable differences, it was still found that only 27 per cent of the pay gap for Pacific males could be explained, and 39 per cent for Pacific females. The unexplained portion of the pay gap can be due to a few reasons, including differences not observed in the data, unconscious bias and discrimination in the labour market.
This paper uses administrative data on all medically-diagnosed mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs, commonly referred to as concussions) in New Zealand linked to monthly tax records to examine the labour market effects of suffering a mTBI up to four years after the injury. It uses a comparison group of those who suffer a mTBI but at a later date to overcome potential endogeneity issues, and employs a doubly-robust difference-in-differences method. Results show that suffering a mTBI has negative effects on both employment and earnings. Rather than dissipating over time, these negative effects grow, representing a decrease in employment rate of 20 percentage points and earning losses of about a third after 48 months.
View the working paperThis paper provides first evidence on sexual orientation and earnings in New Zealand (NZ), one of the most inclusive countries for LGBTQ+ people in the world. Using confidential linked census-tax data, the paper compare outcomes for individuals in same-sex couples versus different-sex couples. Results show patterns of earnings differentials in NZ that are strikingly similar to those documented in other developed countries: men in same-sex couples earn about 7.5 percent less than otherwise similar men in different-sex couples while women in same-sex couples earn about 6 percent more than otherwise similar women in different-sex couples.
View the working paperThis paper analysed the effects of literacy proficiency and reading engagement on the wellbeing outcomes of adults in New Zealand. It used a recent nationally representative survey data from New Zealand, multivariate regression models to estimate the effects of reading engagement on earnings, health, social trust, political efficacy and civic engagement. Results showed that reading engagement positively affected one's health, social trust, political efficacy, and civic engagement.
This study uses the identification strategy of Fadlon and Nielsen (2019) model to measure the degree of risk-taking behaviour of fathers with Accident Compensation Corporation injury claims data which holds detailed information on work and non-work-related injuries, and Department of Internal Affairs records on childbirth and fatherhood from Stat's NZ Integrated Data Infrastructure. Results suggest that men react differently to fatherhood heterogeneously dependent on age, ethnicity, past behaviour, and the nature of injury claims. Most fathers, however, exhibit a decrease in the propensity to make sport injury claims after childbirth.
Despite presenting potentially significant challenges and opportunities, the possible implications for workplace health and safety (WHS) of future-of-work trends have so far received scant attention. This paper, therefore, empirically examines the relationship between future-of-work trends and workplace injuries. It undertakes multivariate regression analysis using population-level accident compensation data for New Zealand linked to other data sources within Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) and Longitudinal Business Database (LBD), including information on business practices related to the future-of-work.
View the working paperThis paper compares coverage rates for MMR, pertussis, and HPV vaccines among children born in Aotearoa New Zealand of overseas-born parents or NZ-born parents. Using a nationwide cohort with Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure, logistic regression models were utilised to examine the most influential factors contributing to differences in timely vaccine uptake.
COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted research regarding data collection methods during lockdowns and border closures. Consequently, online methods have become the present-day benchmark. This article shares our experiences adapting to COVID-19 while conducting focus groups and online interviews. Guided by the Samoan methodology Teu le va that recognises the special relationships between people from a Samoan context and the Talanoa method of storytelling of the Pacific people, we provide insights concerning the practical and cultural challenges of collecting data during lockdowns that strengthened the continuation and completion of the project.
This paper uses Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data linked to administrative data to track the educational and labour market outcomes of young people. Students with lower skills have lower rates of participation in further education. While low-skilled men out-earn their higher-skilled counterparts when they are very young, their earnings are overtaken by those with higher skills when they are in their early 20s, and they earn around 15 per cent less by the age of 25. The differences among women are substantially larger – women with low skills earn approximately 35 per cent less than their higher-skilled counterparts by age 25.
Migrants on temporary visas are unable to access Kiwisaver (KS), a savings vehicle that makes saving for retirement convenient and provides financial incentives to save. This research note estimates the extent of this migrant KS ineligibility issue. Using linked administrative data to create and follow a cohort of 70,000 NZ migrants on temporary work or student visas in 2009. Results show that after five years, over half of the cohort live overseas and about 10,000 remain on temporary visas and hence are still ineligible for KS. Using KS enrolment of a comparison group of resident-class migrants over the same time period, it is estimated that just over half of employed temporary migrants might have potentially joined KS if eligible. The lost individual KS contributions range between $36,000 and $51,000 by time the migrant reaches 65 years old.
Visiting Researcher, Niloofar Katiraee presented results from a study investigating workers’ diversity in production systems to understand how differences among workers affect production systems, with a particular focus on assembly systems. After an extensive literature analysis, new approaches and optimisations are proposed to integrate workers’ differences into assembly systems. Distinctively, a combination of worker features was considered with the objective of analysing the effectiveness of considering workers in assembly systems (in both design and rebalancing phases) and improving workers’ involvement in job assessments, promoting an inclusive culture in workplaces. This research work identifies important relations between workers’ differences and assembly system performance. The outcome of this research can be instructive for production system managers and practitioners whether deciding on investments in the design phase or in workforce management.
This paper investigates the way in which COVID-19 has exacerbated the poor work conditions within community support work in Aotearoa-New Zealand. It examines the invisibility of care work in New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic, in terms of Government policy and communication, societal recognition of care work, and the spatially hidden nature of the work. It does so within the of gender norms in the socio-cultural, socio-spatial and socio-legal spheres that render this work and workers invisible. This paper documents the experiences of community support workers and contributes to our theoretical understanding of frontline health workers’ experiences of work during a global public health crisis.
Aotearoa New Zealand is on the verge of significant change aimed at increasing disabled people’s access to and control and choice over the support they receive in order to have the flexible, high-quality care that enables them to lead ‘good’ lives. However, the system changes – Mana Whaikaha – designed to enact the Enabling Good Lives policy has its roots in neo-liberal funding and policy approaches that undervalue support work, and has largely overlooked workers and workforce development. The lack of recognition of the disability support workforce in this policy development threatens the success of the programme to provide quality support to disabled people.
This study examines the impact of a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) on criminal outcomes in later life, while controlling for socio-economic factors and past behaviour. The authors use data from Stats NZ's Integrated Data Infrastructure, and a case-control method of matching those who had sustained an mTBI with those who had experienced a lower limb fracture to examine the effect on violation charges and convictions 10 years post-injury.
This presentation highlights the step-by-step implementation of regression-based methods for quantitative intersectionality, which refers to the idea that an individual experiences discrimination differently based on the interaction of the characteristics that define their identity. It then highlights two examples of quantitative intersectionality using administrative data.
Utilising qualitative focus group discussions founded on Teu le va (relational spaces) and semi-structured Talanoa (storytelling) from 230 Pacific participants, findings show that multiple barriers exist at the macro (societal), meso (organisational, schools and training institutions) and micro (individual) levels alongside cultural and familial factors that perpetuated and sustained low literacy and numeracy skills.
This presentation is a part of the MBIE expression, experience and transcendence of low skills in Aotearoa New Zealand project, and looks at the relationship between literacy and numeracy skills of young people and their future educational, labour market, health, and crime outcomes.
This presentation summarises findings from research that uses data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure to analyse the effect of literacy and numeracy programmes on labour market outcomes in New Zealand.
This presentation encapsulates findings on the "explained" and "unexplained" factors that contribute to gender and ethnic pay gaps in New Zealand across the wage distribution, and highlights recommendations for pay transparency.
How does small-firm employment respond to exogenous labour productivity risk? We find that this depends on the capitalization of firms’ local banks. The evidence comes from firms employing workers whose productivity depends on the weather. Weather- induced labour productivity risk reduces this employment, and this effect is stronger in regions where the regional banks have less equity capital. Bank capitalization also proxies for the extent to which the regional banks’ borrowers can obtain liquidity when the regions are hit by weather shocks. We argue that, as liquidity providers, well- capitalized banks support economic adaptation to climate change.
View the working paperThis paper uses Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data linked to ad- ministrative data to track the educational and labour market outcomes of young people. Students with lower skills have lower rates of participation in further education. While men with low skills out-earn their higher-skilled counterparts when they are very young, their earnings are overtaken by those with higher skills when they are in their early twenties and earn around 15% less by the age of 25. The differences among women are substantially larger - women with low skills earn about 35% less than their higher-skilled counterparts by age 25.
View the working paperThere is extensive acknowledgement and evidence that ethnic gaps (particularly for Māori and Pacific Peoples) exist in the rates of GP registration, immunisation and dental checks. Underutilisation of these healthcare services may result in a number of adverse health outcomes in the long term.
This project quantifies the contribution of potential drivers (accessibility, mobility, socio-economic, parental and child characteristics) of ethnic differences at three longitudinal time points with a view to providing potential policy drivers to assist in closing these gaps.
Presentations highlight key findings from quantitative and qualitative work funded by the Health Research Council, the Children and Families Research Fund, MSD, and Te Hiringa Hauora/Health Promotion Agency which analyses ethnic differences in the utilisation of child healthcare services in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Using data from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal survey for a cohort of children born between 2009 and 2010, econometric approaches were utilised to explore underlying mechanisms behind ethnic differences in healthcare service uptake. Healthcare utilisation was strongly influenced by socio-economic, mobility and social factors including ethnic discrimination. In decomposition models comparing Māori to NZ Europeans, the strongest drivers for timely first-year immunisations and GP satisfaction (2-years) were household composition and household income. Gaps between Pacific and NZ Europeans in timely first-year immunisations and choice of maternity carer were largely unexplained by factors included in the models.
Leon Iusitini presented findings from his PhD thesis on intergenerational income mobility which uses data from the NZ Longitudinal Census to estimate the intergenerational elasticity of personal income between father-son pairs and mother-daughter pairs. Results show that, relative to international studies, income persistence in NZ from fathers to sons is relatively low, while income persistence from mothers to daughters is relatively high.
Lisa Meehan presented findings on the victim/offender overlap to identify whether there is a dynamic relationship between criminal offending and victimisation or whether population heterogeneity is the main driver of the victim/offender overlap.
Alexander Plum presented findings on the effects of the 2007-09 Global Financial Crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown on wage progression for workers with different skills in New Zealand.
This presentation explores COVID-19 vaccination among three cohorts of children in NZ: (1) Overseas-born migrant children; (2) NZ-born migrant children; and (3) NZ-born non-migrant children. The authors highlight descriptive statistics for each of the three cohorts and control for these factors to ascertain their effect on receiving COVID-19 vaccination.
This study presents new empirical evidence on the role of time trends in low pay persistence. We utilize population-wide tax records to track monthly labour market trajectories of initially low-paid workers. By performing age- and qualification-specific regressions, we find that low pay persistence reduces with time. However, the magnitude is highly heterogeneous across workforce characteristics. For a qualified worker in their early 20s, the risk of staying on low-pay declines by, on average, 5–10% points after one year. For a worker in their 50s, persistence remains almost unchanged regardless of their qualification level. We conclude that policy initiatives need to be more nuanced than a simple one-size-fits-all approach by accounting for time trends in low-pay persistence.
New Zealand has often been described as a leader in the field of gender equality. Yet, while women have achieved substantial gains in a range of outcomes (education and labour force participation for example), the gender pay gap has changed very little. We find that this gap is largely unexplained (83 per cent).
This research paper aims to disentangle the effects of two different aspects of literacy, literacy proficiency as measured by standardized tests, and reading engagement as measured by self-reports of everyday reading activities. The paper uses multivariate regression models on nationally representative survey data from New Zealand, to estimate the effects of reading engagement on earnings, health, social trust, political efficacy, and civic engagement.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
This research paper examines the life-course trajectories of a cohort of NZ youth using linked administrative data to track their outcomes. It finds that students with low measured skills have less favourable outcomes in a number of areas. Outcomes for Māori in both the low-skills and above-baseline groups are less favourable than those of their NZ European counterparts.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
This paper examines the life-course trajectories of NZ adults across different skill levels in literacy and numeracy. Findings show that adults with low measured skills have less favourable outcomes in a number of areas. They have lower rates of educational attainment, lower employment rates and average earnings, higher rates of hospitalisation, and higher rates of criminal offending and convictions.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
This study aims to better understand the various labour market groups in New Zealand who want jobs or more hours of work, known as the underutilised workforce. We analyse the composition and characteristics of the underutilised workforce, the likelihood of movement in and out of this group and the reasons for underemployment. We also present findings on the earnings trajectories of underemployed workers relative to fully-utilised workers over the time period affected by COVID-19 compared to before the pandemic.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)
We investigate whether having a child immunized at a prior schedule genuinely increases the likelihood of vaccinating the child at the subsequent schedule. Using longitudinal data from the Growing Up in New Zealand study, we apply a random-effects model that also controls for the initial immunization status. We detect sizeable state dependence in immunization, indicated by a significant increase in the likelihood of child immunization by an average of 21 percentage points if the child was immunized at the previous schedule compared to if they were not. However, this effect is exacerbated if a mother is discouraged from having her child immunized during antenatal period.
Kabir Dasgupta spoke at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management conference on the effect of the Oranga Tamariki Act (1989) on youth well-being.
Using around one million repeat sales observations of single-family homes across New Zealand, over the period 1992 to 2021, the authors provide evidence that idiosyncratic risk in real house price appreciation varies considerably across houses. The authors find that idiosyncratic risk is time varying, depends negatively on the initial house price, varies strongly across locations and reduces significantly as the holding period of the house increases. Location is the most important of these factors. By buying an above the median house in a low-risk region, and holding on to the property for a longer period, households can significantly reduce idiosyncratic risk.
View the working paperHonour Abuse Research Matrix (HARM) is an international consortium of researchers, practitioners, policy makers and support agencies, working to research and pioneer strategies to eliminate harmful practices, including ‘honour’ abuse, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation (FGM). HARM, UK version was funded by Research England to produce this jargonfree, evidence-based, workplace guidance for best practice so organisations and their employees feel motivated, confident, and empowered to respond appropriately when they suspect or encounter harmful traditional practices.
The authors' recommendations are based on a Rapid Evidence Review of the most up-to-date research. With manaakitanga, the authors acknowledge the Treaty of Waitangi and the tangata whenua. This report is designed to inform all public, private, and third sector organisations, of any size. This report is also useful for professionals and families, in understanding and facilitating hidden and visible harms pertaining to domestic/intimate partner/spouse abuse, forced marriage and FGM.
View the report
This report uses data from the Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) birth cohort to provide a snapshot of fathers' engagement during the early years of their lives, to analyse the determinants of fathers' engagement, and analyse potential consequences of different levels of fathers' engagement on children's outcomes.
Funder(s): The Ministry of Social Development
With regard to their future health, adolescents are at a critical stage. Previous evaluations have shown that health screenings, counselling, and other intervention programmes during this phase of life are important, particularly for those with a low socio-economic background. Unfortunately, adolescents tend to have little interest in preventive programmes. We designed a field experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of financial incentives to promote participation in health screenings. Our study comprises more than 10,000 participants, observed via high-quality administrative data from Austria.
Using longitudinal data from Growing Up in New Zealand study, we apply a random-effects probit model that also controls for the initial immunisation status. We detect sizeable state dependence in immunisation, indicating that the likelihood of a child increases, on average, by 21 percentage points if the child was immunised at the previous schedule compared to if not. This effect is further exacerbated if the mother received antenatal discouraging information on immunisation.
View the working paperThe purpose of this report is to present the experiences of Māori care and support workers working in residential aged care, home and community support, disability support and mental health and addiction. This report is a companion report to The New Zealand Care Workforce Survey 2019 Report (Ravenswood et al., 2021) and The Impact of the Pay Equity Settlement: Data from the 2019 Care Workforce Survey (Ravenswood and Douglas, 2021) and is based on the responses from 353 of the total (n=1,784 care and support worker respondents) who identified as Māori.
This study investigates the impact of COVID-19 (COVID) on the labour market disparities between Pasifika and New Zealand European (NZ European). To analyse these disparities, we assess labour market outcomes for the pre-pandemic period (January 2017–December 2019, inclusive) and quantify how they changed during the COVID period (March 2020–June 2021, inclusive). We are interested in understanding whether COVID amplified ethnic disparities in job accession and benefit dependence; job and wage mobility; and job separation.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)
In November 2021, amendments to the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 increased the residential qualification total time requirement from 10 to 20 years. As a first step for understanding the potential impact of the NZ Super residency criteria change, this report uses Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) to examine how long NZ-born emigrants live overseas and estimate the size of the population potentially affected by this change.
Funder(s): Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission
This report follows 70,305 NZ migrants aged 18 or over, and tracks their visa status and border movements from 2010 to 2019. The aim of this analysis is to provide insights into how long migrants stay on temporary visas before progressing to a visa type that allows them to stay in NZ indefinitely and therefore have access to KiwiSaver as a means for convenient retirement savings.
Funder(s): Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission
View the report
This research note aims to explore the factors that contribute / explain the Māori and ethnic pay gaps in New Zealand. In particular, pay gaps for Māori, Pacific, and Asians relative to Europeans. We use Stats NZ data from the Household Labour Force Survey for 2019 and 2020.
Funder(s): Human Rights Commission
We use New Zealand's administrative court charges data to document child gender-specific differences in future criminal behaviour of young fathers.
Journal: Labour Economics
Professor Gail Pacheco spoke on the gender pay gap at the 2022 Gender Pay Equity Webinar for International Working Women's Day.
View the presentation
This article utilises the Integrated Data Infrastructure to examine the effect of an alcohol-purchasing legislation change on alcohol-induced criminal behaviour at the minimum purchasing age.
This report utilises a qualitative and quantitative survey (n=396) to highlight employment and work concerns in the hospitality sector such as problematic pay and working conditions, a high proportion of insecure contracts, bullying and harassment, and non-compliance with employment law.
Dr. Christopher Erwin presented findings which summarised labour market returns to high-skill immigration at the 2022 Association for Education Finance and Policy Conference.
This report presents the experiences of those working in residential aged care, home and community support, disability support and mental health and addiction in relation to the impact of the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) 2017 Act (and subsequent amendments). This report is a companion report to The New Zealand Care Workforce Survey 2019 Report (Ravenswood et al., 2021) and follows up qualitative research on the impact of the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) 2017 Act (Douglas and Ravenswood, 2019).
This working paper studies the effects of the 2007-09 Global Financial Crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown on wage progression for workers with different skills in New Zealand.
View the working paperLinda Tran presented her PGR9 which seeks to estimate the social return-on-investment to housing and urban developments in New Zealand by measuring population-level wellbeing using administrative data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure.
This report explores the complex social and cultural reasons that Māori may be less likely to engage with childhood vaccination services. Delayed immunisation is a factor strongly associated with increasing rate of infectious diseases.
Funder(s): Te Hiringa Hauora/Health Promotion Agency
Dr. Christopher Erwin presented findings which summarised the victim/offender overlap in New Zealand and the dynamic relationship between criminal offending and victimisation at the 2022 Allied Social Sciences Association Virtual Annual Meeting.
Our qualitative empirical research reveals, and compares, how visible ethnic women migrants (VEWM) experience their journey to professional success in Iceland and New Zealand. The findings reveal that for VEWM success is a continuous journey with many different challenges. For VEWM in Iceland, success means independent hard work and aligning with other women. VEWM in New Zealand experience success through religion and giving back to the community.
Journal: Journal of Management and Organization
Sinking lids are designed to gradually reduce machine caps by prohibiting the transfer of gaming licenses. This study leverages variation in the geography and timing of local policy interventions to estimate the effect of sinking lids on gambling expenditure. Results suggest that sinking lids reduce gambling expenditure by 13% relative to regions not adopting policies beyond national-level restrictions.
Journal: Journal of Gambling Studies
This working paper describes the literacy and numeracy (L+N) intervention landscape in Aotearoa ascertained from discussions with key stakeholders in the sector. These discussions were focused on high-level government policy and strategy, specific provider and referral pathways, and the type of individuals for whom L+N learning is designed.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
This working paper utilises detailed court charges information to identify comparable groups of ex-convicts, then linked to a population-wide tax register to analyse the effect of criminal record concealment on ex-offenders’ labour market outcomes.
View the working paperThis working paper uses German survey data to provide evidence on short- and long-run effects of fathers’ job loss on the intra-household allocation of domestic work.
View the working paperThe economic literature considers a low-paid job as a ‘steppingstone’ if it improves jobless individuals’ future likelihood of transitioning towards higher pay. Using population-wide administrative data with monthly earnings information, our study first confirms the stepping-stone effect but also indicates that annual survey-based evidence on the future likelihood of transitioning to higher-paid jobs is likely overstated.
Journal: Economic Record
This paper studies the dynamics of the scarring effect of youth unemployment over the business cycle in 12 European countries. On the one hand, we analyse differences associated with the negative effect of past unemployment experiences on future labour market status. And, on the other hand, we consider the potential stigmatization of prospective young workers.
Journal: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics
What are the possible implications of future-of-work trends for workplace safety? This report examines the relationship between future-of-work trends and workplace safety outcomes using information on work-related injury claims.
Funder(s): WorkSafe New Zealand
This report examines the adoption of future-of-work (FoW) practices, processes and technology in New Zealand workplaces. It uses Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) and Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) to examine a variety of practices associated with the FoW such as employee engagement and inclusion policies, flexible leave and work options, automation and digitalisation, and the use of collective agreements and non-standard work.
Funder(s): New Zealand Industrial Relations Foundation
The 2019 report of the Care Workforce Survey continues from the previous Aged Care Workforce Survey reports of 2014 and 2016, and includes residential aged care and home and community support, and the disability support and mental health and addiction sectors. It reports on the experiences of care and support workers, nurses and managers in these sectors.
Betty Ofe-Grant, AUT, presented research on qualtitative data collection methods at the NZ Vocational Education and Training Research Forum 2021.
Alexandra Turcu, Research Officer, presented research coauthored with Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, and Gail Pacheco, Director, on gambling policies at the NZ Association of Economists Conferece 2021.
Summer Staninski, Institute Administrator, presented research on the 2018 Families Package at the NZ Association of Economists Conference 2021.
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented research on NZ's frontier firms coauthored with Guanyu Zheng and Hoang Minh Duy at the NZ Association of Economists Conference 2021.
Sandra McCallum , Research Assistant, presented research on concussions coauthored with Lisa Meehan, Associate Direcor, Gail Pacheco, Director, and Alice Theadom at the NZ Association of Economists Conference 2021.
Juliane Hennecke, Research Fellow, presented research co-authored with Clemens Hetschko about the well-being of work-linked couples at the European Society for Population Economics 2021 Conference.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented resarch on the effect of clean slate regulation on employment and earnings co-authored with Keshar Ghimire and Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, at the Society of Labor Economists 2021 Conference.
Lisa Meehan, Associate Director, presented research co-authored with Nic Watson and funded by the NZ Industrial Relations Foundation tothe Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment about the future of work in NZ.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research on the role of ethnicity in criminal behaviour coauthored with André Diegmann, Tom Kirchmaier and Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, at the AUT School of Economics Seminar Series 2021.
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented on NZ adults living with low literacy and numeracy skills at the Ako Aotearoa Adult Literacy Numeracy and Cultural Capability Forum.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, and Alexandra Turcu, Research Officer, on the effects of local policy interventions on gambling expenditure in NZ.
This study compares the relative performance of New Zealand’s firms to several small advanced economies using novel cross-country microdata from CompNet. Results show that New Zealand’s firms have comparatively low productivity levels and that its frontier firms are not benefiting from the diffusion of best technologies outside the nation.
Journal: International Productivity Monitor
We study the short-run effects of a large-scale upzoning on house prices and redevelopment premiums in Auckland, New Zealand. Upzoning significantly increases the redevelopment premium. Notably, intensively developed properties decrease in value relative to similar dwellings that were not upzoned, showing that the large-scale upzoning had an immediate depreciative effect on preexisting intensive housing.
Journal: Urban Studies
This paper establishes that ethnicity matters for criminal behavior. Exploiting the gender of the first-born child on fathers’ conviction rates, this is the first paper to document behavioral differences in parental criminality between ethnic groups. We show that the effect of having a son on father’s criminal behavior is entirely driven by the white part of the population.
Work often interferes with family life, especially when partners work in the same occupation and industry, although little is known about their wellbeing. This working paper examines the satisfaction differences in income, work, family and leisure between work-linked and non-linked partners using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP 2019).
View the working paperIncome gaps in college enrollment, persistence, and graduation raise concerns for those interested in equal opportunity in higher education. The program focused solely on the first four semesters of enrollment and tied aid disbursements to modest academic benchmarks and enhanced academic advising. Meaningful decreases in time to degree appear to be driven by students with the lowest academic preparation and family income.
Journal: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
Insurance Programme (SCHIP) to provide publicly funded health insurance coverage for children in low-income families. We estimate the effect of a publicly funded children’s health insurance benefit on immigrant women’s fertility. We find a significant positive effect on the fertility of unmarried immigrant women, both at the extensive and at the intensive margin.
Journal: Applied Economics Letters
Work as well as family life are crucial sources of human wellbeing, which however often interfere. Our results suggest that being work-linked increases satisfaction with life as well as income and job satisfaction. These findings are consistent with positive assortative matching and mutual career support between work-linked partners.
Journal: IZA Institute of Labor Economics
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research on victims and criminality coauthored with Juliance Hennecke, Research Fellow, Lisa Meehan, Associate Director, and Gail Pacheco, Director, at the Western Economic Association International Meeting 2021.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Xiaoxue Li and Melissa Binder on the growing number of delayed graduations in baccalaureate degrees in the US, and what kind of wage effects this has for these graduates in the future at the 2021 Association of Education, Finance and Policy Conference.
Astrid Pape presented researched coauthored with Juliane Hennecke, Research Fellow, at the 2021 Australian Gender Economics Workshop.
This research analyses the effects of Class 4 gambling policies on the availability of non-casino gambling machines, also known as pokies, and associated gambling behaviour. This research assesses the impact of Class 4 gambling policies on pokie machine and venue availability, as well as gambling expenditure.
Funder(s): Ministry of Health
The aim of this research paper is to provide a comprehensive portrait of the population living with low literacy and/or numeracy (L/N) skills in NZ.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
This working paper utilises population-wide tax records to discuss how persistence in low-pay changes over time across heterogenous groups in the workforce.
View the working paperThis working paper develops multivariate models of how reading component processes are related to the higher order literacy proficiency assessed by the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and to adults’ engagement with reading in everyday life.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
This working paper provides a literature review to define ‘skill’ and the related concept of competency, and how these terms are associated with literacy and numeracy. It looks at how the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) defines and measures skills.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
In this paper, we use population variation in testosterone levels to explain transition probabilities into and out of unemployment. We find that individuals with high testosterone levels are more likely to become unemployed, but they are also more likely to exit unemployment. We argue that these effects are likely driven by personality traits and occupational sorting of men with high testosterone levels.
View the working paperThe minimum alcohol purchasing age in New Zealand was lowered from 20 to 18 in December 1999. Focusing on two distinct legislative regimes, we utilize a national-level census of criminal convictions to examine the impact of unrestricted alcohol purchasing rights on alcohol-related crime. We do not find a statistically meaningful increase in overall measures of alcohol-related crimes at the minimum legal alcohol purchasing age.
View the working paperThis research uses Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) data to provide insights regarding differences in the use and experience of child healthcare services in NZ focusing on decisions to immunise, seek dental care, and visit the doctor. The report analysed responses from around 6,000 parents at four time points: antenatally; when the children were nine-months; then two-years; and then four-years-old.
Funder(s): Ministry of Social Development, Health Research Council
This paper uses detailed judicial and demographic data from New Zealand to discuss differences in parental criminal behaviour between ethnic groups after child birth.
View the working paperInsurance Programme (SCHIP) to provide publicly funded health insurance coverage for children in low-income families. We estimate the effect of a publicly funded children’s health insurance benefit on immigrant women’s fertility. We find a significant positive effect on the fertility of unmarried immigrant women, both at the extensive and at the intensive margin.
View the working paperThis working paper utilises population-wide administrative data to estimate the heterogenous effects of the intensity of attachment to the low-pay sector on the likelihood of moving towards higher pay.
View the working paperThis paper utilises findings from a randomised controlled trial that utilised random assignment of scholarships for low-income students at a medium-sized four-year university to show the effect of financial aid on the likelihood of obtaining a degree, and the time taken to obtain a degree.
View the working paperWe focus on New Zealand’s clean slate legislation to analyze whether automatic concealment of criminal records improves ex offenders’ labor market outcomes. Implementation of the clean slate scheme has no statistically relevant impact on employment propensity. However, the rehabilitative intervention results in a 2-2.5% increase in employed individuals’ monthly earnings.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, and. Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, on the link between access to alcohol and criminal behaviour at the Association for Public Policy and Management Conference 2020.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Peter Eibich, Ricky Kanabar and Julian Schmied on the role of testosterone in men's entry and exit of the labour market at the AUT School of Economics Seminar 2020.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research on policies seeking to tackle problem gambling in NZ coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, and Alexandra Turcu, Research Officer, at the University of Wollongong.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, on the effect of the Clean Slate Scheme at the AUT School of Economics Seminar 2020.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, on low-paid employment at the AUT School of Economics Seminar 2020.
Leon Iusitini, PhD student, presented research on intergenerational income mobility at the NZWRI Seminar Series 2020.
New Zealand introduced a substantial childcare subsidy just over a decade ago, providing 20 hours free early childhood education (ECE) to all three and four year olds. The estimated impact of the ECE reform is a drop in earnings for eligible women, by four to ten percent post-childbirth. Furthermore, most of the reduction occurs prior to the children reaching the age of eligibility.
Journal: New Zealand Economic Papers
The minimum alcohol purchasing age in New Zealand was lowered from 20 to 18 in December 1999. Focusing on two distinct legislative regimes, we utilize a national-level census of criminal convictions to examine the impact of unrestricted alcohol purchasing rights on alcohol-related crime. We do not find a statistically meaningful increase in overall measures of alcohol-related crimes at the minimum legal alcohol purchasing age.
Estimating economic earnings mobility is imperative for understanding the degree to which low pay employment is a temporary or long-term position. We find that individuals with a strong attachment to the low pay sector have a very low probability of shifting into higher pay and a greater risk of experiencing a low pay-no pay cycle relative to those who are intermediate or higher paid.
Journal: IZA Institute of Labor Economics
In this paper, we use population variation in testosterone levels to explain transition probabilities into and out of unemployment. We find that individuals with high testosterone levels are more likely to become unemployed, but they are also more likely to exit unemployment. We argue that these effects are likely driven by personality traits and occupational sorting of men with high testosterone levels.
This paper aims to challenge the implicitly made assumption in the economics of crime literature that findings are universally applicable across cultures and race. We replicate the results of an earlier study by Dustmann and Landersø (2018) in New Zealand and find that when splitting out by ethnicity, the effect is entirely driven by the white part of the population.
We use the natural experiment of a state lottery scholarship to measure the effect of generous financial aid on graduation rates at New Mexico’s flagship public university. We find a significant positive completion effect of 10 percentage points (17.9 percent) for academically well-prepared students that is offset by a large negative effect of 11.6 percentage points (38.8 percent) for less-prepared students.
Journal: Education, Finance and Policy
This paper analyses the role of resource allocation in NewZealand’s productivity performance by applying a three-factor revenue productivity measure of within-industry misallocation to firm-level data. It finds that if all market distortions were eliminated, total factor productivity could increase by more than a third.
Journal: New Zealand Economic Papers
Citing consumer protection concerns, several states have recently enacted interest rate caps on small loans. We test whether these laws caused a decrease in the number of payday-lending establishments and subsequently prompted variation on incidence of bankruptcy filings. Our results show payday-lending establishments drop by approximately 100%–a banishment of the industry.
Journal: Journal of Banking and Finance
We provide novel evidence on the short- and long-run effects of an exogenous shock on paternal availability, through a job loss, on the allocation of domestic work within couples. We find that paternal child care and housework significantly increase in the short run on weekdays, while we do not see any similar shifts on weekends.
Journal: IZA Institute of Labor Economics
We examine whether locus of control (LOC) can explain alcohol consumption as an important domain of health behavior. LOC measures how much an individual believes that she is in control of the consequences of her own actions for her life’s future outcomes. We find a significant positive effect of having an internal LOC on the probability of moderate and regular drinking.
Journal: IZA Institute of Labor Economics
This paper uses German survey data to analyse the role of the locus of control, a measure of one’s belief about the effect of behaviour on life outcomes, for differences between labour force participation probabilities between women.
View the working paperWe have created a 3-part infographic series on Auckland’s pre-covid-19 labour market. Understanding how the labour market has been impacted by covid-19 should help us answer some meaningful policy questions in future, such as: What will Auckland’s post-covid-19 labour market look like and how can policy help it recover?
Juliane Hennecke, Research Fellow, presented research on work-linked couples coauthored with Clemens Hetschko at the EALE/SOLE/AASLE World Conference 2020.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research evaluating policies that seek to close the income gap in college graduate rates in the US coauthored with Melissa Binder, Cynthis Miller and Kate Krauss at the EALE/SOLE/AASLE World Conference 2020.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research on low-pay persistence coauthored with Alexander plum, Senior Research Fellow, at the EALE/SOLE/AASLE World Conferece 2020.
Juliane Hennecke, Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Astrid Pape on the effect of job loss on fathers' time spent at home at the German Socio-Economic Panel User Conference 2020.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Chrisotpher Erwin, Research Fellow, and Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, at NZWRI's Internal Seminar Series 2020.
Juliane Hennecke, Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Astrid Pape on the effect of job loss on fathers' time spent at home at NZWRI's Internal Seminar Series 2020.
Juliane Hennecke, Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Marco Caliendo on the relationship between the personality trait locus of control and alcohol consumption at the Otago University Economics Seminar 2020.
Juliane Hennecke, Research Fellow, presented on the personality trait locus of control on women's labour force participation at the 2020 Australian Gender Economics Workshop.
This report examines the prevalence of, and characteristics associated with, Pacific in-work poverty in New Zealand. The analysis within this study draws primarily on linked data from Inland Revenue and the 2013 Census, as well as supplementary information provided by the Household Labour Force Survey.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
This report examines the prevalence of, and characteristics associated with, in-work poverty in New Zealand, which could help inform the systemic changes needed to reduce poverty rates. In-work poverty is defined as the proportion of working households that fall below the poverty threshold.
Funder(s): Human Rights Commission
We use the Household Labour Force Survey to characterise the underutilised workforce in New Zealand. A worker is considered to be underutilised if they are unemployed, time-related underemployed or belong to the potential labour force. We also identify potential drivers of the duration of underutilisaiton and unemployment.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
The aim of this literature review was to understand the causes and drivers of workplace injury in home-based health and disability support services. The literature review was based on international academic research, government generated research and reports, reputable consultancy organisations and other organisations such as unions.
Funder(s): Home and Community Health Association
This report is confidential
This study explores the integration of Māori language and Māori culture in organisations across New Zealand. The research conducts a large scale quantitative-qualitative survey of over 1,100 New Zealand employees to understand participation in te reo me ngā tikanga Māori.
Funder(s): Te Taura Whiri i te Roa Māori (The Māori Language Commission)
The aim of this survey is to uncover policies and practices within New Zealand’s largest organisations on behalf of the United Nations Women, with a specific focus on Women’s Empowerment Policies.
Funder(s): New Zealand Women's Empowerment Principles
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Our analysis presents a case study on the impacts of Health Care Home (HCH) – a large-scale technology-based healthcare innovation in New Zealand’s primary healthcare system. HCH results in a statistically significant reduction in the likelihood of emergency department (ED) presentations by 6-8 percent, with no significant impacts on other health outcomes.
Journal: The BE Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy
There is growing evidence that frequent residential relocation is often associated with adverse socio-economic outcomes related to education, health and wellbeing. Prior research aimed at exploring the extent of residential movement has usually been restricted to survey evidence or infrequent census data. We derive working definitions for the transient and vulnerable transient.
Journal: Journal of Population Research
Citing consumer protection concerns, several states have recently enacted interest rate caps on small loans. We test whether these laws caused a decrease in the number of payday-lending establishments and subsequently prompted variation on incidence of bankruptcy filings. Our results show payday-lending establishments drop by approximately 100%–a banishment of the industry.
View the working paperNew Zealand has often been described as a leader in the field of gender equality. Yet, while women have achieved substantial gains in a range of outcomes (education and labour force participation for example), the gender pay gap has changed very little. We find that this gap is largely unexplained (83 per cent).
Journal: New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations
This working paper uses administrative data and a discontinuity in eligibility criteria of a state-funded scholarships to identify a local average treatment effect on degree completion and course taking behaviour for low-performing college students.
View the working paperThere are substantial ethnic gaps in higher education in NZ, despite considerable policy effort aimed at this concern. This study uses newly linked administrative data to examine the underachievement of Māori and Pasifika relative to Europeans. Utilising Fairlie decompositions, we find that school performance is by far the largest contributor to the ethnic gaps.
Journal: Studies in Higher Education
The labour market dynamics of unemployed, low-paid and higher-paid employed men are analysed. Moreover, the respective (un)employment duration and occupational skill level are accounted for. Results show that in general low wages significantly reduce the risk of future unemployment and increase the chances of ascending the salary ladder, especially in the case of long-term unemployment (>360 days).
Journal: Applied Economics
There is considerable debate on whether the employment and earnings prospects are better for those on low pay or for the unemployed. We estimate dynamic random effects panel models, which show robust evidence that the future unemployment risk is lower for those who are currently on low pay compared to those who are currently unemployed. The low-paid also have a higher chance than the unemployed of becoming higher-paid.
Journal: PLoS One
This study examines the relationship between state cyberbullying laws (which require schools to enact effective guidelines to address cyberbullying) and the reporting behavior of youth. Key results indicate that adoption of a cyberbullying law is related to statistically significant increases in the likelihood that students report experiences of being victimized by electronic bullying.
Journal: New Zealand Economic Papers
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented research coauthored with Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, and Rod Hick on in-work poverty in NZ at the Human Rights Commission In-work Poverty Seminar 2019.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Keshar Ghimire and Alexander Plum, Senior Reserch Fellow, at the 2019 Southern Economics Association Meeting, US.
Guanyu Zheng (Fish), Productivity Commission, presented research coauthored with Andrew Coleman on job-to-job transitions at the Academic Association of Historians in Australian and New Zealand Business Schools Conference 2019.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Melissa Binder, Cynthia Miller and Kate Krauss on the effect of financial-aid scholarships on the income gap in college enrolment at the Labour Econometrics Workshop 2019.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Brenden Mason, on the effects of interest rate caps on bankruptcy at a 2019 Seminar, Otago University.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, on low-paid employment at the 34th Annual Congress of the European Economics Association 2019.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, on Maximum Simulated Likelhood at the 2019 Seminar at Otto von Guerick University of Magdeburg, Germany.
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented on how economics can inform social policy at the Australian Conference for Economists 2019.
Katherine Ravenswood, presented research on the care work sector coauthored with Julie Douglas at the Regulating for Decent Work Conference 2019.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, on the future effects of low pay employment at the NZ Association of Economists Conference 2019.
Livvy Mitchell, Institute Administrator, presented her Master's thesis research on home detention policy in NZ at the NZ Association of Economists Conference 2019.
Leon Iusitini, PhD student, presented at the NZ Association of Economists Conference 2019.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research on the minimum drinking age in New Zealand coauthored with Kabir Dasgupta and Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellows, and Gail Pacheco, Director, at the 2019 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Erling Rasmussen, Leader of the Employment Relations Research Group, presented on the barriers to dispute resolution in HR at the Barriers to Participation: What would make a difference and would it work? 2019 Symposium.
Bridgette Toy-Cronin, Otago University, presented on barriers to participation in HR dispute resolution at the Barriers to Participation: What would make a difference and would it work? Symposium 2019.
Mario Andres Fernandez, Auckland Council, presented research on the price effects of special housing areas at AUT.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented at "Building Connections between Research and Policy" - Association for Finance, Education and Policy Conference 2019.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research on the wage effects of baccalaureate time to degree in the US coauthored with Melissa Binder and Xiaoxue Li.
Nan Jiang, AUT, presented a literature discussion and scoping exercise on the productivity of housing construction.
This working paper utilises data from the British Household Panel Survey to discuss low wages as a steppingstone to higher paid employment. Results show that low wages reduce the risk of future unemployment and increases the chances of moving into higher paid work. Findings also highlight the importance of occupational skill level in this analysis, as workers in low-paid, high-skilled occupations have a greater chance of moving into higher pay.
View the working paperNew Zealand introduced a substantial childcare subsidy just over a decade ago, providing 20 hours free early childhood education (ECE) to all three- and four-year olds. The estimated impact of the ECE reform is a drop in earnings for eligible women, by four to ten percent post-childbirth. Furthermore, most of the reduction occurs prior to the children reaching the age of eligibility.
View the working paperThis report presents a case study analysis on one part of the New Zealand healthcare system. We focus on the NZ Health Care Home initiative and investigate the impact of its implementation on a wide array of health events.
Funder(s): Productivity Commission
The purpose of this report is to examine the possibility of modernising New Zealand's welfare and social assistance system to remove or reduce reliance on the couple-based unit of assessment and the associated requirement for relationship status testing.
Funder(s): Superu
This study combines administrative monthly earnings data, birth records, and survey information on hours worked and earnings to describe the labour market outcomes of men and women as they have children, as well as how parenthood contributes to the gender pay gap in NZ.
Funder(s): Ministry for Women
This study uses a nationally representative sample of children and mothers from the National Longitudinal Surveys to estimate the impact of prenatal smoking during pregnancy on child bodyweight outcomes. The findings of the article show that, in line with existing literature, new-born children of smokers tend to weigh significantly less than children of non-smokers. However, in contrast to previous research, the article shows that the commonly observed positive association between prenatal smoking and childhood obesity lacks causal interpretation. As such, the analysis highlights the potential relevance of socio-economic conditions and more of mothers who smoke during pregnancy.
View the working paperThis working paper uses matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Surveys to employ instrumental variables regressions to test whether a mother’s self-esteem is important to a child’s home environment quality. Our results show that there is a positive effect between mother’s self-esteem and children’s cognitive and emotional development.
View the working paperThis working paper uses a dataset of residential sales transactions to discuss the effect of upzoning on the redevelopment premium and house prices. Results show that upzoning increases the redevelopment premium and significantly increases house prices when compared to properties that were already intensively developed.
View the working paperThis project examines how the physical work environment, and the way that change to the physical environment is managed, affects employees on outcomes such as wellbeing, the quality of their interpersonal relationships, and productivity.
State‐specific statutes providing legal consequences for perpetrating domestic violence in the presence of a child have been enacted across the United States between 1996 and 2012. We find a significant drop in domestic violence‐related homicide rates, when considering a wide range of victim–offender relationships. However, this result does not hold for marital homicides, suggesting that for this subpopulation, the risk of reprisaland consequent reduction in reporting may be counterbalancing the hypothesized deterrent impacts of the legislation.
Journal: Health Economics
This study empirically examines the impact of warrantless arrest laws (designed to deter domestic violence) on multiple youth outcomes in the US. There is no direct link between warrantless arrest laws and domestic violence‐related homicides. However, we do find evidence that arrest laws result in a drop in the probability of youth experiencing suicidal ideation and substance use behaviour.
Journal: BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy
We appeal to critical race theory and intersectionality to examine achievement gaps at a large public university in the American southwest from 2000 to 2015. Using white, high-income women as our reference group, we find substantial achievement gaps that remain unseen in conventional models treating such characteristics as independent.
Journal: Race, Ethnicity and Education
In this study, we use matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Surveys to study the effects of family size on child health. Focusing on excess body weight indicators as children’s health outcome of interest, we examine the effects of exogenous variations in family size generated by twin births and parental preference for mixed sex composition of their children. We find no significant empirical support in favor of the quantity-quality trade-off theory in instrumental variable regression analysis.
Journal: Economics & Human Biology
Erla S. Kristjánsdóttir, University of Iceland, presented research on the experiences of Filipino nurses in Iceland.
Rod Hick, Cardiff University, presented on the measurement of in-work poverty to the Ministry of Social Development.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, and Melanie Borah, at the 2018 Applied Econometrics Workshop.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented research on scholarship lotteries in New Mexico at the 2018 Applied Econometrics Workshop.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, on low paid jobs.
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented research coauthored with Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, on low paid jobs to the Ministry of Social Development.
Jayne McKendry, Citizens Advice Bureau, presented insights on barriers to participation in resolving employment relations problems at the Barriers to Participation Symposium 2018.
Oliver Christeller and Mikee Santos, UNEMIG and FIRST Union, presented at the Barriers to Participation Symposium 2018.
Peter Franks, MBIE, and Research Associate, NZWRI, presented at the Barriers to Participation Symposium 2018.
Erling Rasmussen, Leader of the Employment Relations Research Group, presented at the Barriers to Participation Symposium 2018.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented a Conference Poster coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, at the European Association of Labour Economists Conference 2018.
Anna MacLean and Natasha Lewis, Ministry for Women, presented research on the gender pay gap in NZ at the Pay Equity - Where are we now? Seminar 2018.
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented research on the gender pay gap in NZ at the Pay Equity - Where are we now? Seminar 2018.
Lydia Cheung presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, and Isabelle Bouchard at the 2018 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, at the 2018 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Isabelle Sin presented research funded by the Ministry for Women and coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, and Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, at the 2018 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Keshar Ghimire and Gail Pacheco, Director, at the 2018 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, and Melanie Borah at the 2018 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Nan Jiang presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, and Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, at the 2018 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Ryan Greenaway-Mcgrevy presented research coauthored with Gail Pacheco, Director, and Kade Sorensen at the 2018 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Christopher Erwin, Research Fellow, presented at the 2018 NZ Association of Economists Conference.
Suzy Morrissey, Treasury, presented at the 2018 Living Standards Framework - A Sustainable Approach to Business Symposium.
Christine Brotherton, Perpetual Guardian, presented at the 2018 Living Standards Framework - A Sustainable Approach to Business Symposium.
Karen Fistonich, Villa Maria, presented at the 2018 Living Standards Framework - A Sustainable Approach to Business Symposium.
David Hall, AUT, presented at the 2018 Living Standards Framework - A Sustainable Approach to Business Symposium.
Angsana Techatassanasoontorn and Antonio Díaz Andrade, AUT, presented the results of the World Internet Project.
Gail Pacheco, Director, and Alexander Plum, Senior Research Fellow, presented research on the persistence of low-pay employment.
Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research fellow presented research coauthored with Tirthatanmoy Das at the 2018 International Western Economic Association Conference, Australia.
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented research on the gender pay gap in NZ, coauthored with Chao Li and Bill Cochrane and funded by the Ministry for Women, at the 2017 forum "The Gender Pay Gap: Evidence in New Zealand and Implications for us all".
Gaye Greenwood and Jarrod Haar, Associate Director, presented at the 2017 Wellbeing and Performance Symposium.
Helena Cooper-Thomas, of the Wellbeing and Performance Research Group, presented research coauthored with Sofia Garcia and Matthias Stadler at the 2017 Wellbeing and Performance Symposium.
Jarrod Haar, Associate Director, presented on research coauthored with Candice Harris on the role of HR practices in employee wellbeing at the 2017 Wellbeing and Performance Symposium.
Rachel Morrison and Roy Smollan, of the Wellbeing and Performance Research Group, presented at the 2017 Wellbeing and Performance Symposium.
Suzy Morrisey, NZ Treasury, presented at the 2017 Wellbeing and Performance Symposium.
Barbara Myers, of the Wellbeing and Performance Research Group, presented at the 2017 Wellbeing and Performance Symposium.
With low levels of employment protection legislation for temporary workers compared to the rest of the OECD, NZ makes a useful case study in examining wage discrimination against the temporary workforce. We use the Oaxaca decomposition method and propensity score matching to explain the temporary -permanent wage gap in NZ. The former shows that most of the wage gap is explained by observables while we find a pay penalty of between 12-17 percent when using PSM.
View the working paperThis study empirically examines the impact of warrantless arrest laws (designed to deter domestic violence) on multiple youth outcomes in the US. There is no direct link between warrantless arrest laws and domestic violence‐related homicides. However, we do find evidence that arrest laws result in a drop in the probability of youth experiencing suicidal ideation and substance use behaviour.
View the working paperThis study examines the relationship between state cyberbullying laws (which require schools to enact effective guidelines to address cyberbullying) and the reporting behaviour of youth. Key results indicate that adoption of a cyberbullying law is related to statistically significant increases in the likelihood that students report experiences of being victimized by electronic bullying.
View the working paperNew Zealand has often been described as a leader in the field of gender equality. Yet, while women have achieved substantial gains in a range of outcomes (education and labour force participation for example), the gender pay gap has changed very little. We find that this gap is largely unexplained (83 per cent).
View the working paperIn this study, we use matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Surveys to study the effects of family size on child health. Focusing on excess body weight indicators as children’s health outcome of interest, we examine the effects of exogenous variations in family size generated by twin births and parental preference for mixed sex composition of their children. We find no significant empirical support in favour of the quantity-quality trade-off theory in instrumental variable regression analysis.
View the working paperThere are substantial ethnic gaps in higher education in NZ, despite considerable policy effort aimed at this concern. This study uses newly linked administrative data to examine the underachievement of Māori and Pasifika relative to Europeans. Utilising Fairlie decompositions, we find that school performance is by far the largest contributor to the ethnic gaps.
View the working paperThis study presents the first attempt at quantifying the scale of transience and vulnerable transience in NZ, and a description of who these people are. Understanding who is at risk of being transient will inform the work of a number of social sector agencies who deliver services to vulnerable populations.
Funder(s): Superu
To monitor international students’ outcomes, this study explores the scope of administrative data in the IDI to construct indicators of students’ academic outcomes (qualification completion), economic conditions (employment indicators), physical and mental wellbeing (usage of health care services), and inclusion (crime victimisation and incidence of accidents leading to injury).
Funder(s): Ministry of Education
David Williamson, of the Business and Labour History Research Group, presented at the Business History as a Platform for Progress 2017 Symposium.
Fiona Hurd, of the Business and Labour History Research Group presented at the Business History as a Platform for Progress 2017 Symposium.
Geoffrey Brooke, Anthony Endres, and Alan Rogers, of the Business and Labour History Research Group presented at the Business History as a Platform for Progress Symposium 2017.
Simon Mowatt, Leader of the Business and Labour History Research Group, presented at the Business History as a Platform for Progress 2017 Symposium.
Gail Pacheco, Director, and Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow presented research on the effects of warrantless arrest laws for domestic violence on youth at the 2017 NZ Association of Economists Conferece.
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented research coauthored with Chao Li and Bill Cochrane on the gender pay gap in NZ at the 2017 NZ Association of Economics Conference.
This research aims to better understand the low pay sector within New Zealand, and the changing nature of this group in recent years. A particular focus of the study was on identifying who is low paid, to build a comprehensive portrait with regard to their individual, household, and job characteristics.
Funder(s): Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
The size of the gender pay gap in NZ is approximately 12%, based on 2015 data. We examine this gap with the Oaxaca Blinder decomposition method and find that just over 83% of the gap is unexplained; after controlling for differences in individual, household, occupation, industry and other job characteristics.
Funder(s): Ministry for Women
This study uses newly linked administrative data to examine the underachievement of Māori and Pasifika relative to Europeans. We follow a population from school through to young adulthood to assess the relative contributions of prior academic performance, socioeconomic status and parental education to these gaps.
Funder(s): Productivity Commission
The demand for an aged care workforce in New Zealand is predicted to increase significantly in the near and long term future. At the same time, pay conditions for employees in the sector have come under scrutiny. This survey questioned both employees and managers in residential and home/community aged care about who is working, and what their experiences are.
Dr Julie Douglas and Associate Professor Katherine Ravenswood conducted focus groups and interviews with managers and care support workers to understand how the 2017 Pay Equity Settlement on the residential aged care, home and community care and disability sectors' affected their work experiences.
Jarrod Haar, Associate Director, presented research coauthored with David Brougham on the 4th Industrial Revolution at the 2017 Future of Work Forum.
Jarrod Haar, Associate Director, presented on changes to the workplace at the 2017 Future of Work Forum.
Jarrod Haar, Associate Director, presented on how the HR sector can catch up with advances in the future of work at the 2017 Future of Work Forum.
Jarrod Haar, Associate Director, presented on the importance of work-life balance at the 2017 Future of Work Forum.
Jarrod Haar, Associate Director, presented research on exploring an organisational resilience psychological climate in NZ at the 2017 Future of Work Forum.
This study focusses on the pay outcome with respect to the temporary workforce in New Zealand. Our findings signal that the majority of the temporary-permanent wage differences can be explained by observable characteristics, with no wage gap evident for fixedterm workers. We also find varying effects across the wage distribution.
Journal: Australian Journal of Labour Economics
Recent evidence has suggested that the benefits of equity market integration may not be shared equally by all firms. Making use of a firm-level measure of integration we investigate whether one of the documented benefits of equity market integration, lower cost of equity capital (COEC), holds for all Australian firms. Our results indicate that increased integration at the firm level leaves firms exposed to higher COEC when world market conditions are volatile.
Journal: Australian Journal of Management
In this study on Great Britain, we estimate the labour market and income process of prime-aged men simultaneously and control for spillover effects. Evidence is presented that the risk of becoming unemployed and poor increases with the duration of unemployment and decreases with the duration of employment.
Journal: Applied Economics Letters
Gail Pacheco, Director, presented research coauthored with Lisa Meehan, Associate Director, and Zoe Pushon, on ethnic disparities in qualification completion at the 2017 Western Economic Association Conference, San Diego.
Gail Pacheco, Director, and Kabir Dasgupta, Senior Research Fellow, presented their research on state legislations that prohibit domestic violence in the presence of a child at the 2017 Western Economic Association Conference, San Diego.
The Vodafone New Zealand Foundation commissioned NZWRI to undertake a study to provide a comprehensive profile of the Y-NEET landscape in NZ
Senior Research Fellow Kabir Dasgupta presented research co-authored with Keisha Solomon on the relationship between family size and children's health at the Empirical Evidence Workshop at AUT.
This report reviews the international literature on quantifying the cost of homelessness, with a view to identifying methodologies (and the appropriate data) that may be useful in a New Zealand (NZ) context. We conduct a survey of the literature and a data scoping exercise within this report - the data is sourced from the newly available linked administrative data (Integrated Data Infrastructure) available from Statistics NZ.
Funder(s): Lottery Community Sector Research Committee
The purpose of this report is to provide a short research summary of each of the six key focus areas, summarising research findings from international and New Zealand (NZ) literature. Furthermore, several of the key focus areas also include case studies which provide examples of how companies implemented specific strategies which enabled them to overcome the challenges associated with that area.
Reducing the number of youth not in employment, education, or training (Y-NEET) has become a key focus of government policies. We found that 12% of youth aged 16-24 years in NZ were NEET; 65% of all Y-NEETs resided in either the Auckland, Waikato, Wellington or Canterbury local government regions; Y-NEETs were generally more likely to be aged 20-24 years; female; and be of NZ European or Maori descent.
This report focusses on the need to acknowledge that we are now also more religiously diverse than ever before and if we are to live up to our reputation as being one the world’s most peaceful countries then we need to respect, understand and educate ourselves about New Zealanders' faiths and cultures.
There is growing interest in the disabled population, which in most developed countries including NZ, make up a sizeable proportion of the working-age population. Accordingly, there has been a substantial amount of work undertaken from the academic and policy communities alike, internationally, in understanding the characteristics of the disabled population, as well as developing and implementing strategies to promote a more inclusive society where people with a disability (PwD) are able to participate fully in social and economic life.
This project began by asking what could learned from the second Survey of Working Life (SoWL) released by Statistics NZ. While some excellent analytic work had resulted from the first SoWL in 2008, there was little official work planned on the second survey, and many issues around insecure work in NZ remained to be addressed.
Funder(s): Ministry of Innovation, Business and Employment
This paper investigates the longitudinal stability and impact of societal cultural values (SCVs) – as opposed to the more common organizational values – on job satisfaction. Results indicate that the strength of many SCVs has declined, the impacts of traditional societal values on job satisfaction have remained fairly constant, and the impacts of survival societal values on job satisfaction have declined substantially over this sample period.
Journal: British Journal of Management
This analysis is aimed at better understanding what socio-economic actors are associated with shifts in unemployment rates across a major metropolitan city. The key socio-economic drivers associated with intra-city employment dynamics were vehicle access, dependency rates and educational attainment.
Journal: International Journal of Social Economics
The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the role of perceived ability to participate in decision making in the workplace, with respect to job satisfaction. The results are negatively biased; potentially indicating that prior research may have underestimated the impact of participative decision making (PDM) on job satisfaction. Additionally, it appears clear that the magnitude of the marginal effects for both socio-demographic and work characteristics do not differ when comparing workers with above and below average participation.
Journal: Personnel Review
In 2013, NZWRI partnered with Diversity Works (then known as the EEO Trust) and the Chamber of Commerce, Northern, to survey New Zealand organisations about a broad range of diversity issues.
NZ Diversity Survey October 2015
NZ Diversity Survey April 2015
In order to gain a better understanding of the issues that NZ organisations need to address when engaging an ageing workforce, NZWRI and their research partners from Massey University and the University of Waikato conducted a survey of almost 300 EEO Trust organisational members.
Ageing Workforce Survey: Understanding the Needs of NZ’s Ageing Workforce
Poor health may inhibit active participation in the labour market and restrict the types of employment available to an individual. This paper uses recent survey data from New Zealand to find that health issues (and in particular mental health) are negatively related to the likelihood of being employed; and entering full-time and / or permanent employment.
Journal: Australian Journal of Labour Economics
Mental health status often has a strong association with labour market outcomes. We reveal that permanent workers with poor mental health appear to select into temporary employment thus signalling that prior studies may overestimate the influence of employment type on mental health. We also reveal that this selection effect is significantly mitigated by job satisfaction.
Journal: Social Science & Medicine
The use of online quizzes has become more popular in introductory economics courses in recent years, however their efficacy in improving student engagement and performance has seldom been evaluated. This paper attempts to undertake an evaluation of that efficacy by combining individual engagement and exam performance data with demographic information for a cohort of students enrolled in a first year economics course.
Journal: Australiasian Journal of Economics Education
Using data from the European Social Survey, we investigate the relationship between political participation and personal values, using the Schwartz (1992) values inventory. A political participation hierarchy is theorized, and activities are categorized into four levels of participation (none, weak, medium and strong), based on the cost of participating and how unconventional the activity is. Empirical analysis points to individuals who are more open to change and more self-transcendent, being more likely to participate.
Journal: Applied Economics
In mid-2013 we conductedinterview with workers in sectors commonly associated with telework: financial services; professional, scientific and technical services; information, media and telecommunications etc. This briefing document summarises the key lessons on managing telework learned from these organisations in order to provide guidance for managers implementing or reviewing telework within their organisations.
A comprehensive review of over 300 years of the business of magazine publishing in the UK. This project examined how firms adapted to changing competitive conditions, examining the impacts of technological changes and its impacts on production processes, labour, firm strategy and structure, unions and patterns of employment. A major output was a widely reviewed monograph.
The primary aim of this study was to examine manager and employee perspectives on telework productivity and wellbeing. The study surveyed almost 100 HR and team managers and over 1800 staff across 50 Australian and New Zealand organisations. Managers were interviewed on issues such as telework policy, processes, attitudes and outcomes, while organisational members were surveyed on-line on their telework experience, with a focus on support for telework, telework productivity, and wellbeing outcomes.
317 results found: