The potential of gender (and intersectional) equality indices: the case of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public service

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted in a multi-faceted and gendered manner on the labour market in most countries. In Aotearoa New Zealand, high-level gender indices (GIs) have broadly captured this impact, helping to inform sectoral policy reform. However, these indices seldom capture more qualitative, nuanced and connected aspects of (in)equity despite increasing labour market and workplace diversification, and more scholarly attention on how these inequities are created, perpetuated or nuanced. The need for finer-grain analysis of women’s diversity encouraged a transdisciplinary study of working women in several public service agencies in New Zealand. Experts, employees and managers in the sector participated in in-depth interviews to help generate institution-specific gender indices which can be used alongside ‘conventional’ quantitative measures to closely assess workplace (in)equities. This study thus extends the conceptual parameters of GIs applied at national levels; provides a framework of equity considerations and (emergent) indicators for inclusion in organizational-level equity policy development; and briefly assesses meso-level equity indices with respect to the gender-responsive/accommodating/transformative or ‘gender-inclusive’ framework used throughout this volume.