Literacy and Life Skills for Pasifika Adults: Results from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey

3. Labour force status

This section is concerned with the distribution of skills by labour force status amongst Pasifika peoples. For the purposes of this report, labour force status is grouped as employed, homemakers and other labour force statuses.

Figure 3.1 shows the distribution of the employed, homemakers and other labour force statuses among Pasifika peoples measured by the IALS and ALL surveys.¹⁰ Figures 3.2 to 3.5 show the distributions of each of prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving skill by labour force for Pasifika adults in New Zealand. In addition, Figures 3.2 and 3.3 show the comparable statistics available from the IALS survey.

Overall, Figures 3.1 to 3.5 indicate that:

• There was an increase in the proportion of Pasifika adults who were employed.¹¹
• For all four skill domains (prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy, and problem solving skill), for both the employed and those in other labour force statuses, the majority (from 73 percent to 94 percent) of Pasifika adults in 2006 had level 1 or 2 skills.
• For all four skill domains, employed Pasifika adults in 2006 had substantially higher skills than Pasifika adults in other reported labour force statuses.
• The percentage of employed Pasifika adults with level 3, 4, or 5 prose literacy appeared to decrease substantially from 1996 to 2006.¹² For employed Pasifika adults, the percentage at level 2 appeared to increase.
• Changes in document literacy from 1996 to 2006 were somewhat different to those of prose literacy over the same period. The percentage of employed Pasifika adults with level 3, 4, or 5 document literacy appeared to decrease as did the percentage at level 2. Assessment of the significance of the decline is difficult as the number of Pasifika respondents in the IALS survey was relatively small.
  

Figure 3.1: Labour force status, IALS and ALL

Note:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, unemployed (and seeking employment), student, retired and other are grouped under the title “other”.

Figure 3.2: Prose literacy level by labour force status, IALS and ALL

Notes:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, homemaker, unemployed (and seeking employment), student, retired and other are grouped under the title “homemaker or other”.
2. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.
3. Figures for “homemaker or other” in IALS were not included because of their low statistical quality.
   

Figure 3.3: Document literacy level by labour force status, IALS and ALL

Notes:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, homemaker, unemployed (and seeking employment), student, retired and other are grouped under the title “homemaker or other”.
2. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.
3. Figures for “homemaker or other” in IALS were not included because of their low statistical quality.
   

Figure 3.4: Numeracy level by labour force status, ALL only

Notes:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, homemaker, unemployed (and seeking employment), student, retired and other are grouped under the title “homemaker or other”.
2. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.
3. Numeracy was not measured in the IALS survey.
   

Figure 3.5: Problem-solving level by labour force status, ALL only

Notes:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, homemaker, unemployed (and seeking employment), student, retired and other are grouped under the title “homemaker or other”.
2. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3 and 4 were grouped together.
3. Problem-solving was not measured in the IALS survey.
   

Footnotes

10. The IALS and ALL surveys group labour force status as “employed”, “unemployed”, “student”, “retired”, “homemaker” and “other”. For the purposes of this report, these have been regrouped as “employed”, “homemaker” and “other” so that “other” in this report is an amalgamation of “unemployed”, “student”, “retired”, and “other” in the IALS and ALL surveys. Labour force status was regrouped in this way for several reasons: firstly, the IALS and ALL surveys only include retired people 65 years old or younger so don’t represent all retired people; secondly, the surveys only include students living in private residences so don’t represent all students; thirdly, as some of these groups were small their associated literacy level statistics were of low quality. For completeness, the prose literacy means (with standard errors in parentheses) for Pasifika adults in the labour force status categories as recorded in the ALL survey were: employed, 238 (4); unemployed, 224 (8); retired, 220 (33); student, 248 (5); homemaker, 214 (11); other, 180 (19).
    
11. The New Zealand Household Labour Force survey records that from 1996 to 2006, the percentage of Pasifika adults aged 15 and over who were employed increased from around 50 percent to 59 percent.
    
12. See Appendix Figures 3.1 to 3.6 for a description of the quality of the data. Some of the statistics concerning Pasifika peoples were of marginal quality so these apparent changes may not be as pronounced as they appear.