Missing men and unacknowledged women: Explaining gender disparities in New Zealand’s prime adult age groups 1986 – 2006

Abstract

Questions concerning the widening disparity in numbers of males and females in the prime working age groups in New Zealand’s population have attracted attention from researchers and the media in recent years. This paper reviews some of the findings from research for a FRST-funded programme that has been investigating several inequalities based on gender and ethnicity in New Zealand’s population. The analysis here complements and extends that in our paper published in the New Zealand Population Review in May 2006. Our main finding is that a complex combination of issues related to the way our stock (census) and flow (arrival/departure) data are used to compile population estimates (the base for population projections), have contributed to exaggerating apparent gender disparities in the 20-49 year age groups at successive censuses. There is no single explanation for this, and the main new finding from our analysis is that gender disparities in the prime adult age groups in New Zealand’s population are as much a function of ‘unacknowledged women’ as of ‘missing men’.