NZ has 5th smallest gender gap in the world

New Zealand has again been judged to have the 5th smallest gender gap in the world, for at least the third year running. The only countries higher are Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden.

The UK is 15th, US 19th, Canada 20th and Australia 23rd.

Down the bottom we have Yemen, Chad, Pakistan, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire.

Labour MP Sue Moroney has said:

Today’s Global Gender Gap report, written by the World Economic Forum, shows NZ sliding towards a lower ranking says Labour Spokesperson for Women’s Affairs, Sue Moroney.

“For the first time in five years, New Zealand’s score has dropped and while it retained its fifth-placed ranking, it is now at risk of being overtaken by Ireland in next year’s report unless the Government stops going backwards on wage equality for similar work, enrolment of women in tertiary education, literacy rates for females, female to male wage ratios, and women in Ministerial positions.

“The international report shows NZ has gone backwards in five key areas for women in 2010 after having made steady progress in the previous four years,” said Sue Moroney.

Now the overall score has slightly declined, but let us look at these “five key areas” where Moroney claims NZ is going backwards. She cites one as enrolment of women in tertiary education.

Now in fact women massively outnumber men in tertiary education. In 2009 the ratio was 1.49 to 1 and in 2010 it was 1.48 to 1. So Moroney is actually complaining that men are slighlt less disadvantaged in an area where they are massively disadvantaged. Moroney has taken an idiotic stance that the higher the ratio is for women, the better for NZ. So in her world a 5:1 ration of women over men in tertiary education would be better than 4:1.

And on the issue of gender pay gap, the Herald reported:

Last week Women’s Affairs Minister Pansy Wong praised the latest New Zealand Income Survey results, saying they showed the gender pay gap was closing, down from 11.3 per cent last year to 10.6 per cent.

But Pay and Employment Equity Coalition spokeswoman Angela McLeod said at the time that the apparent drop was a result of a poor economy.

“Incomes are dropping and more households are dependent on women’s lower paid work.

“This is not a real closing of the gender pay gap, but an outcome of the recession and higher unemployment,” Ms McLeod said.

Now I actually agree with McLeod. One doesn’t celebrate a lower gender gap on the basis that both men’s and women’s wages have fallen, but men have fallen slightly more closing the gap.

But this is what many on the left effectively advocate with their insistence of reducing income inequality. They regard it as horrendous that the top 10% income earners wages by go up 5% if the bottom 10% only go up 4%. But they celebrate NZ is a more equal society if the top 10% have their wages drop 5%, so long as the bottom 10% only have their wages drop 4%.