Women in Local Government
An analysis of the number of women in local government has revealed that they hold fewer senior council positions than men, by far, and the percentage of women councillors has declined in the past three local body elections. A Local Government NZ working paper, "Description and Analysis of the Overall Profiles of Elected Members Following the 1998, 2001 and 2004 Local Government Elections", found that the number of women elected to local authorities in 1998 was 29 percent. In the 2001 elections it fell to 28 percent and fell again to 27 percent in 2004.
Further, male elected members were much more likely to have senior positions on councils than their female counterparts. In 1998, there was only one woman holding the chairperson's position on the twelve regional authorities. It rose to two in 2001 and was back to one in 2004. At present, only Environment Waikato has a woman chair. Of the 74 city and district mayors, 19 were female in 1998, 11 in 2001 and 14 in 2004.
The working paper doesn't only focus on gender issues. It also looks at:
- age distributions of elected members;
- ethnicity distribution of elected members;
- the main source of elected members' income;
- how many elected members were returning sitting members on previous council; and
- previous political experiences of elected members (that is, whether they had been an MP).
The working paper can be downloaded from: http://www.lgnz.co.nz/library/files/store_009/Yanjie_Shi_paper_-_analysis_of_the_survey_of_elected_members_1998_-_2001_-_2004.pdf The Environment Waikato website is: http://www.ew.govt.nz/ |
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The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Pastoral House
25 The Terrace
PO Box 2526, Wellington
Tel: 0800 00 83 33
Fax: +64 4 894 0720
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