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

2. Gender

This section discusses the distribution of skills by gender amongst Māori adults.

Figure 2.1 shows the distribution of men and women among Māori adults measured by the ALL survey. Figures 2.2 to 2.5 show the distributions of each of prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving skill for Māori men and women in New Zealand. In addition, Figures 2.2 and 2.3 show the comparable statistics available from the IALS survey.

Overall Figures 2.1 to 2.6 indicate that:

• The proportion of women in Māori adult population was stable from 1996 to 2006⁴.
• For prose and document literacy and problem solving skill domains, Māori women, on average, had slightly higher skills than Māori men. But in numeracy, Māori men had the advantage. This pattern applies to the general population.
• For all four skill domains (prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy, and problem solving skill), for both men and women, more than half (from 59% to 89%) of Māori adults in 2006 had level 1 or 2 skills.
• The proportion of Māori women with very low prose and document literacy skills decreased substantially between 1996 and 2006. This effect was much less marked for Māori men. This may be associated with the lower participation, in recent years, of Māori men in tertiary education compared to Māori women, and also Māori men’s slower rate of increase in participation⁵.

Figure 2.1: Gender distribution, IALS and ALL

Figure 2.2: Prose literacy level by gender, IALS and ALL

Note:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.

Figure 2.3: Document literacy level by gender, IALS and ALL

Note:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.

Figure 2.4: Numeracy level by gender, ALL only

Note:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.

Figure 2.5 Problem-solving level by gender, ALL only

Note:

1. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3 and 4 were grouped together.

Footnotes

4. The New Zealand Census records that from 1996 to 2006, the proportion of women in the Māori population aged 15-64 was stable at 52 percent.
5. See statistics on participation in tertiary education at: www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/tertiary_education/participation.