IPENZ Initiative Applauded

19 April 2012

Media Release

IPENZ Initiative Applauded

“It is excellent to see that the Institute of Professional Engineers recognises and is taking action to address an issue significantly hampering their industry’s growth,” National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ) President Elizabeth Bang said today.

Elizabeth Bang was commenting on the meeting of major companies this week to discuss the lack of women in engineering.

“In the last 50 years, women have entered the workforce in ever increasing numbers and have taken up many well-paid and professional roles. However there is still a great deal of entrenched inequality. In New Zealand, the majority of women in work are clustered in a small number of female-dominated occupations.

“Almost half the women workers in New Zealand are in occupations that are more than 80 per cent female and women are still under-represented in higher level jobs.”

Elizabeth Bang said that this is a problem for the New Zealand economy because women’s skills are not being fully utilised. Economic studies show that greater diversity in the business sector will have a positive impact on productivity and economic growth.

“This occupational clustering or ‘segregation’ is also one of the reasons we still have a gender pay gap – in fact, research shows that 20 to 40 per cent of the pay gap can be attributed to this.

“The New Zealand Census of Women’s Participation monitors the participation rates of women in a number of non-traditional areas including engineering, agri-business, accountancy, defence, the judiciary, law, the Police and as CEOs or Directors of Boards. The most recent Census shows that New Zealand has a long way to go to achieve increased numbers of women in non-traditional areas of work and in senior decision-making positions.

“ NCWNZ applauds the work that IPENZ is doing to address this problem in their own industry and we will do what we can to support them,” concluded Elizabeth Bang.

ENDS

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