KEY POINTS:
New Zealand is among the top 10 countries in narrowing the gender gap, says a major new report. But we're still some way off true equality of the sexes.
The Gender Gap Index 2006, a collaboration between Harvard University, London Business School and World Economics Forum, said New Zealand had the seventh-smallest gap between men and women out of 115 countries.
The index measured gaps in economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.
Our overall score was 0.714, where 1 represented total equality.
We were particularly strong in political empowerment and education, and had relatively more women in high-skilled professions than any other country.
Predictably, Scandinavian countries dominated the top five, with Sweden coming first with a score of 0.813. The United Kingdom came ninth, Australia 15th and the United States 23rd. No country scored a perfect one.
Dr Alison Laurie, head of gender and women's studies at Victoria University, said historic reasons for our score might include the equal status pre-colonial Maori women enjoyed with same-ranking men, and the interdependence and comradeship that grew among early European men and women settlers forced to forge a living together off the land.
And New Zealand had "always had really wonderful men who supported equality for women", she said. "But this doesn't mean we should rest on our laurels. There are glaring areas where we are totally inadequate."
Minister of Women's Affairs Lianne Dalziel listed some. "Women still earn 12.4 per cent less than men per hour... women are overwhelmingly the victims of serious domestic violence."
The Human Rights Commission last year that found men outnumbered women in senior roles across the board. Only 7 per cent of directors in our top 100 listed companies are women, as are only one in five editors of our major newspapers.
Despite our high political score, only 40 MPs are female - not quite one-third. Dalziel said the high weighting the index gave to having a female head of state might have boosted our score, after Dame Cath Tizard and Dame Sylvia Cartwright's tenures as Governor-General.
But, she said: "The view that women are running the country... doesn't stand up when you look more broadly than who is prime minister."
Minister of Labour Ruth Dyson said the difference in men and women's pay reflected the jobs women did, the value placed on these jobs and women's work arrangements and caring responsibilities.
"The flipside is that men experience less employment flexibility and are expected to work longer hours. It's no accident that the areas of the greatest skills shortages are also the most gender segregated."
