Women’s Socioeconomic Standing Increases in NZ

Women’s Socioeconomic Standing Increases in New Zealand:

MasterCard Index

Auckland, 6 March 2009 - MasterCard Worldwide today released the findings of its annual MasterCard Worldwide Index of Women’s Advancement. New Zealand saw its Index score rise to 90.5 from 80.0 in 2008, ranking it third in Asia/Pacific, behind Australia (96.1) and Thailand (91.5).

This is the fifth year that MasterCard has released this Index which uses four key indicators to measure the socioeconomic level of women in relation to men: •Two of the indicators are based on source data from national statistics bureaus and show the ratio of female to male participation in the labour force and tertiary education.

•Two of the indicators are based on survey data and measure the ratio of female to male respondent perceptions of whether they hold managerial positions at work and earn above median income. These subjective factors are a gauge of how empowered and valuable respondents feel at work. The resulting Index figure calculated from these indicators shows how close or how far women in each market are achieving socioeconomic parity with men. A score under 100 indicates gender inequality in favour of males while a score above 100 indicates inequality in favour of females. A score of 100 indicates equality between the sexes. The Index and its accompanying reports do not represent MasterCard financial performance.

“In New Zealand, the number of women per 100 men who consider themselves in a managerial role at work jumped from 37 in 2008 to 71 in 2009,” said Stuart McKinlay, Country Manager New Zealand, MasterCard Worldwide. “However, within Asia/Pacific this was still behind Singapore at 86 women per 100 men, China at 75 and Australia at 74.”

“The other area where New Zealand comes into its own is the proportion of women to men we have enrolled in tertiary education. We topped the table in Asia/Pacific with 154 women enrolled per 100 men, followed by Australia with 132 women per 100 men and Malaysia with 131. This trend of having more than 100 women enrolled in tertiary education for every 100 men was also seen across many markets in the region. The Asia/Pacific average for this indicator was 105 women per 100 men.”

New Zealand also recorded one of the highest ratios of female to male participation in the labour force in Asia/Pacific at 89 women per 100 men, behind only Vietnam at 94 women per 100 men. MasterCard Worldwide – Page 2 Women’s Socioeconomic Standing Increases in New Zealand: MasterCard Index 2 New Zealand’s overall Index score was pulled down because of fewer women per 100 men perceiving themselves to be earning above median income. Singapore ranked highest in Asia/Pacific, with 98 women per 100 men considering themselves as earning above median income, followed by Australia (92) and Thailand (83). Although it increased from 42 women per 100 men in 2008, New Zealand’s score trailed at 48 in 2009.

Additional highlights include: In 14 Asia/Pacific markets: •The pan-regional Index score across 14 Asia/Pacific markets1 edged up slightly from 71.6 in 2008 to 72.4 in 2009.

•Australia saw the greatest increase in its Index score, followed by Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore and China. The rest of the markets showed decreases in their scores. •The Index score for the Philippines saw the biggest drop, followed by Taiwan, Korea and Japan. •More than 50% of the women surveyed in nine of the 14 Asia/Pacific markets saw themselves as the one who makes most of the major financial decisions for the household. Topping the list was Thailand (77.8% of the women surveyed), followed by Korea (74.4%), China (73.2%), Vietnam (68.8%), Indonesia (59.6%), the Philippines (57.6%), Japan (54.4%), Taiwan (54.2) and New Zealand (50.5%). •In terms of consumer confidence across Asia/Pacific, women in seven of the 14 markets surveyed were more positive than men in terms of their overall outlook for the next six months: Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.

“This is the fifth year of the MasterCard Worldwide Index of Women’s Advancement and it has been interesting to see the movements in scores in New Zealand in terms of labour force participation, tertiary education enrolment rates as well as perceptions towards managerial positions and earning above median income. The women’s segment is of importance to many businesses and we are glad to be providing these insights to help companies better understand and reach out to this important target group,” said Georgette Tan, vice president, Communications, Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa, MasterCard Worldwide. MasterCard is committed to empowering women through initiatives such as its U21 Global Scholarship for Women in Travel and Tourism, which was launched in 2006 to provide working women professionals a programme to develop their leadership skills and realize their full potential in the area of travel and tourism. The programme comprises scholarships given out for the U21Global Executive Diploma of Business Administration that can articulate into The University of 1 Markets surveyed include Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. MasterCard Worldwide – Page 3 Women’s Socioeconomic Standing Increases in New Zealand: MasterCard Index 3 Nottingham MSc in Tourism and Travel Management. In 2008, New Zealand received a quarter of the scholarships awarded to the region.

MasterCard has devoted extensive resources to developing a deeper understanding of the women's segment in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa. It regularly releases consumer insights and trend research on women. These can be accessed at its online repository of proprietary research www.masterintelligence.com

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