I have just belatedly listened to Hon Nicola Grigg’s (National MP – Minister for Women) maiden speech in Parliament as I began searching for other ways to get through to our current government about the challenges the disability community and carers are facing. In her speech, she refers to the ‘Man in the Arena’ example used by Dr Brene Brown in the book, Daring Greatly. Having read all of Dr Brene Brown’s books, I could relate wholeheartedly to this example of what it feels like to put yourself out there, to risk failure but to try anyway, and to continue to keep going (and be vulnerable) because this is what needs to happen to make change and for common sense to prevail. To be authentic and to be true to ourselves.
It’s great to hear that we have a Minister for Women who follows a line of other strong and passionate females into the political arena. The first NZ female MP was Elizabeth McCoombs, just 90 years ago and I can’t imagine how challenging that would have been as the only female in parliament. But 90 years on, we still have a significant gap between the number of male and female MPs. In 2018, we had our record number of female MPs – a total of 46 women, making up 38% of the total. At that time the Greens party was 75% female and the Labour Party had 21 females out of a caucas of 46, getting close to 50%.
In December 2023, the female to male ratios for each political party were as follows:
- Te Pāti Māori 66% (4 of 6)
- Green 60% (9 of 15)
- Labour 56% (18 of 34)
- ACT 45% (5 of 11)
- NZ First 37% (3 of 8)
- National 31% (15 of 49)
Potential coalition averages for women in parliament now would be:
- Te Pati Maori/Green/Labour 56% (31 of 55)
- ACT/NZ First/National 34% (23 of 68)
In 2024, it would be great to have faith that the gender imbalance would not necessarily make that much difference. It would be wonderful to believe that women and men were treated as equals. But we know this not to be true. Today, in 1893 women in New Zealand won the right to vote, and the female Minister for Disability Issues and Minister for Social Development celebrated this with two facebook posts – one including the current female National MPs. I too, celebrate that there are more women MPs than there were 90 years ago – but I can’t celebrate the imbalance of gender representation that is part of the National Party.
I would call myself a ‘soft’ feminist – it’s not an academic term but probably aligns most closely with being a liberal feminist. Growing up, I was led to believe women can do anything (it was the catchcry of the 80s) and I still believe this to be true. However, while this might be true it is blatantly obvious we still live in a patriachal culture and are being subjected to rules largely made by men. Earlier this year (March 18th) it was announced by the Minister of Disability Issues that funding for disabled children and adults would be restricted based on a new set of rules introduced to bring fiscal sustainability to the disability sector. While these restrictions greatly impacted the disabled person, the restrictions have also impacted the families and family carers supporting them. While I acknowledge that it is not only women who are raising children/disabled children/disabled adults, as I will illustrate below, it is largely women who are impacted when it comes to restrictions to support for those in ‘unpaid home and care work’. The changes in March were not only a disability issue but a womens rights issue too. How have our women MPs managed to let us down? Is it because they are outnumbered by their male colleagues, or do they simply not value women who are in unpaid positions? Imagine, if they took a different view and supported disabled people with funding that allowed them to be supported to be as independent as possible, and the knock on effect of this would be women returning to the workforce – creating employment and boosting the economy!
Gender imbalance in employment plays out in a number of ways, not limited to but including:
- women are more likely to be under employed and under utilised in the labour market
- women earn less despite having more qualifications than men
- women take a disproportionate amount of the caring and family responsibilities.
It is this last statement that I would like to focus on in this post. Based on the 2018 census, 63% of carers were women.
In the Westpac 2021 report, Sharing the Load, it was found that in New Zealand households, fathers typically do most of the paid work, while women typically do most of the work at home. This report found that if the load of housework and care was distributed more evenly the size of New Zealand’s economy could increase by $1.5 b on average every year.
That report focuses on ‘typical’ nuclear families and does not include any breakdown based on whether there is a disabled child in the mix, and only 3% of respondents were single parent families. Anecdotally, it is mostly single Mums who are raising disabled children and unable to work due to caring comittments. In addition to this, the report shows that once children are in school at age 5 years, 23% more women return to work. Once an ‘eldest’ child is 14 years old (the age a child can be left to look after other children or alone), this further enables another 17% to return to full time paid work. By the time the eldest (or only) child is 18 years old there are still 18% of mothers not in full-time work. This could mean several things – there are younger children, the mother can’t find work/does not need to work financially/has sickness or disability OR perhaps she is still needed in a caring capacity. This could be caring for a disabled/sick adult child, or parent or sibling.
According to the State of Caring in Aotearoa report published in 2022 – 22% of carers had given up work to care, 15% had reduced their hours to care and 14% said that their caring role had negatively affected their work (e.g. absenteeism, lateness). Carers generally have lower rates of employment compared to the general population, with just 21% in fulltime work, and 23% in part time work. Of the respondents in the survey used to collect this data 85% were female. Women are not only disadvantaged by having family, but a more disadvantaged if one or more of their children require addtional care work.
More recently, the government also made changes to guidelines around entry into residential care. These changes have meant families caring at home for complex disabled adults 24/7 are unlikely to see a pathway out of caring full time, even once their child becomes a legal adult. That 18% of parents who are still full time carers when their children reach adulthood is likely to grow if we see continued restrictions on residential care. Most affected by these changes, are parents like myself and others in the Complex Care Group, who are caring full time for a child/young adult who has multiple disabilities, a serious ongoing medical condition, and/or behaviour that requires a high level of support. The policy and operational guidelines written by Whaikaha and given to the NASC have prioritised entry to residential care to offenders of the justice system and/or those who are in state care at a younger age. The implication of this is that families are to continue to provide free support and care for ‘adult children’ alongside the supports offered by a combination from the Ministry of Disabled People, MSD and Ministry of Health. This sends a signal out to carers that their health and wellbeing is not important – this is a dangerous message to a population who already have signficantly higher levels of depression and/or anxiety than the general population (State of Caring Survey, page 6).
For many families supported by the Complex Care Group, entry into Residential Care will be mandatory once our own health suffers, we age out, or we die. Neither this government or the previous one is forecasting or allowing for the impact of the growing numbers of complex adults who will need fulltime 24/7 care as their parents age out or die. As a country who signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), according to Article 19, our disabled people have a right to choose the way they live in the community, with who they live and to be supported to do so. If we continue on this path of wearing out the family carers, the state will end up with a larger financial input further down the track. By allowing flexible respite and providing sufficient support we have hope that both the disabled people and the families could prosper.
But back to WOMEN, and the current female Ministers – as the day draws to a close I hope they can reflect on their predecessors who fought hard for the vote and to enter Parliament all those years ago. I would like to challenge them to think about what legacy they will be leaving for the next generations of women. In particular, I would like to see Hon. Nicola Willis, Hon. Nicola Grigg and Hon. Louise Upston rise to the challenge of honouring women’s rights and creating policy that supports women to be valued in all ways. Can this team of strong and independent women ‘Dare Greatly’ enough to strengthen women’s rights and truly represent us in the political arena?
Cherie
References used in the writing of this post:
https://www.ncwnz.org.nz/election_outcomes_for_women_2023
https://www.parliament.nz/mi/get-involved/features/record-number-of-women-in-new-zealand-parliament/
https://www.women.govt.nz/women-and-work/labour-market-participation
Click to access Infometrics-Economic-Contribution-of-Caregiving-November-2022-FINAL.pdf
Yellow Azalea 