Rangatahi Māori who were aged 15 years in 2009 - their income up to age 28 Publications
Publication Details
This report is the second in a series on educational outcomes for rangatahi Māori. It focuses on a cohort of 13,340 rangatahi Māori who were aged 15 years in 2009 and living in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2022. The report looks at how their educational achievement relates to their employment status, earnings and income up to the end of 2022, when they were aged 28 years.
This series uses data from the Stats NZ Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) to update and extend previous work on post-study destinations. The first report in the series looked at the educational achievement and patterns of participation in tertiary education or employment of this same cohort.
Author(s): Nicola Marshall and Dee Earle, Tertiary System Performance Analysis, Ministry of Education
Date Published: August 2025
Summary
These findings are a small part of a much larger picture.
This analysis exemplifies some of the opportunities and limitations in using “big data” to explore complex social, cultural and economic questions. It can describe patterns, measure differences and point to further avenues of exploration. But it is largely silent on the conditions that have given rise to the patterns observed. Its usefulness will depend on the extent to which it can be complemented by the insights of lived experience and cultural expertise.
Key findings
Having any qualification at all improves employment and income for rangatahi Māori.
- From age 20 onwards, rangatahi Māori with no formal educational qualification earned less annually from employment and had lower total income on average1 than rangatahi with qualifications.
- Only two-thirds of Māori men and less than half of Māori women with no qualification received any income at all from employment in each year from age 16 to 28. However, even for those who did have employment income at age 28, Māori women with no qualification earned 58 percent of the average annual employment income for Māori women, and Māori men with no qualification 70 percent of their average.
- The distributions of cumulative incomes for Māori men and women with no qualification were distinctly lower than for those with any sort of qualification. For Māori women with no qualification, their cumulative total income from age 15 to 28 was concentrated in a very narrow range of low incomes.
Higher qualifications provide rangatahi Māori with an employment and income boost.
Māori men and women who would go on to gain a degree or higher by age 28 had relatively high proportions receiving employment income, even at ages where they were most likely to be in full-time study.
Annual income for this group remained below the average for their gender until age 21 for women and age 23 for men. However, by age 28, they had annual total income that was 50 percent higher than the average for rangatahi Māori of their gender.
Māori men with a Level 4 certificate also had consistently higher-than-average annual income, and by age 28 their cumulative income was still higher than for Māori men with a degree, although the gap was closing.
Figure 1: Average annual total income of all rangatahi Māori, by gender and highest educational level 2009-2022
Note: All income has been inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars. Income for rangatahi with a Level 3 certificate, or a Level 5-7 diploma is not shown.
Māori women in this cohort had lower employment and lower income than Māori men on almost every measure.
- From age 18 onwards more Māori men than Māori women received income from employment each year.
- From age 20, Māori women who were employed earned between 70 and 80 percent as much as Māori men who were employed.
- Māori women with degrees tended to have similar income levels to Māori men with degrees, and less disadvantage than other educational levels compared to women across Aotearoa New Zealand.
Both improvement in educational attainment for Māori and labour market interventions are needed to improve Māori incomes.
- Average annual total income for Māori at age 28 was 84 percent that of the average for all Aotearoa New Zealand young people. However, when comparing young people of the same gender and educational level, income for Māori was closer (90 to 95 percent, depending on the group). If the proportions of young people at each educational level were similar, it is likely that the overall disparity in income would be reduced.
- The distribution of cumulative total income was lower for rangatahi Māori than across Aotearoa New Zealand at all educational levels. The differences were generally greater at the top of the income distribution for non-degree levels, suggesting that rangatahi Māori at these educational levels did not have the same access to higher-paying employment.
Figure 2: 15-year-olds in 2009 - Average annual total income of rangatahi Māori relative to all Aotearoa New Zealand, by gender and highest educational level 2009-2022
Note: Relative income is presented as the income for one group divided by the income for another group, in this case, rangatahi Māori average income divided by that of the same cohort in all Aotearoa New Zealand. A ratio of 1.00 means that the average income was the same for the two groups.
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