Demographic changes with National electorate candidates

I blogged a few days ago on the profiles of the 10 new National candidates for seats currently held by National.

A reader e-mailed to say:

It would have been useful to include the background of the people they are replacing so we could judge the extent to which each party is diversifying or consolidating. 

So here’s the changes:

• 9 of the retiring MPs are male, and one female. Their replacements are 8 men and 2 women.
• By age – those retiring are 40s – 3 50s – 3 60s – 4. The new candidates are 20s  – 1, 30s –  1, 40s – 6, 50s -2
• By ethnicity, all retiring are European, and of the new candidates eight are European and two are Maori
• By occupation, those retiring are four farmers, an accountant, a doctor, a real estate agent, a lawyer, a diplomat and an engineer. The backgrounds of the new candidates are on the other blog post.

So overall, a marginal increase in women, a significant increase in Maori, a drop in age (as expected) and fewer farmers but more people with a business background.