Summary

In this paper we have analysed data on work-related outcomes for three Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) target groups - women, Māori and Pacific peoples - and compared these outcomes between the Public Service and the overall labour force. The purpose was to see if the statutory EEO requirements in the Public Service have produced superior outcomes for the three EEO groups when compared with the overall labour force, where voluntarist arrangements are the norm.

The key findings in the report are:

• A higher proportion of both Māori and Pacific peoples are employed in the Public Service than in the overall labour force. This is true for almost all occupation groups. In the Public Service, Māori and Pacific peoples are heavily concentrated in positions that deal directly with citizens. In contrast, in the labour force, both groups are heavily concentrated in the trades and production areas;
• The Public Service employs a relatively low proportion of staff in the regions where the concentration of Māori is highest (particularly Auckland) and a large proportion of staff in Wellington where the proportion of Māori in the labour force is relatively low. The relatively high proportion of staff who are Māori in the Public Service occurs in spite of the geographic distribution of the Public Service;
• The Managers and Science/Technical occupation groups are characterised by high pay levels and low proportions of women employed in both the Public Service and the labour force. However in the Public Service, amongst the younger age groups, each of these occupations consists mainly of women, suggesting that the representation rates may rise over time;
• The Public Service employs a very low proportion of part-time staff in all occupation groups compared with the labour force, which goes against the overall trend for superior work-related outcomes for EEO groups; and
• Pay gaps in the Public Service are considerably smaller than those in the labour force. For Māori and Pacific peoples average pay rates in the Public Service are 95 percent and 90 percent respectively of the average for all staff, once the effects of occupational segregation are removed. In the labour force the comparable figures are 90 percent for Māori and 85 percent for Pacific peoples. The average salary of women in the Public Service is 90 percent of the average for men (once occupation effects are included) compared with 83 percent in the labour force.

Overall the report shows a strong pattern of superior work-related outcomes for EEO groups in the Public Service. While establishing a causal connection between EEO legislation and these outcomes is problematic, these findings do form an important part of the body of evidence on the impact of EEO legislation.

This analysis uses the labour force (where legislative EEO requirements have only a minor influence) as a surrogate for what would have occurred in the Public Service under a voluntarist regime. While this comparison is blunt, some evidence is presented showing that work-related outcomes in the Public Service and the labour force were much closer to each other before the introduction of EEO requirements in the State Sector Act. This suggests that the superior EEO outcomes in the Public Service mainly occurred after the introduction of statutory EEO requirements.