Caregiving responsibilities and a lack of affordable, workable childcare are the biggest factors contributing to the high number of young women who are not in employment, education or training (NEET).

The NEET rate for women in the 20 to 24 age group sits at 20.3 per cent, compared with 16.3 per cent for men in the same age bracket. The underutilisation rate for the same group is 25 per cent, compared with 21.8 per cent for their male counterparts.

Te Uru Tāngata Centre for Workplace Inclusion Chief Executive Maretha Smit says when affordable childcare is unavailable, young mothers exit education and the workforce and struggle to re-enter.

“That exit then has a knock-on effect in terms of later employment and higher benefit reliance.”

Employment trends in different industries may play a role in NEET rates. However, the data from the past year suggest that other factors are having a greater influence, Maretha says.

“Around 60 per cent of working women in Aotearoa work in just four of 16 industries: health care and social assistance, retail and accommodation, professional and administrative services, and education and training, which is a structural issue. When women's employment is packed into so few sectors, there's no spread of risk when any one of them stalls.”

However, in the past year, women's employment grew overall by 21,000 while men's fell by 8,000, suggesting the motherhood penalty may be having a bigger impact on NEET rates.

Women are also over-represented in part-time and casual work, which affects the high underutilisation rate, says Maretha. Underutilisation includes people who are employed but want more hours, as well as those who are available for work but not actively looking.

Bias against employing women aged 20 to 24 does not generally stem from perceptions of their capability. Rather it reflects expectations around future availability.

“Research shows that hiring managers' expectations that an applicant might have a child raised their perception of employment risk for childbearing-aged women, but not for men.”

Another structural issue is that vocational and apprenticeship pathways in Aotearoa remain heavily gendered at intake, so investment in infrastructure and trades training flows disproportionately toward young men.

Women currently aged 20 to 24 are the best-qualified generation of young women New Zealand has produced, Maretha says. Women make up 58 per cent of first-time tertiary entrants and they complete their degrees at higher rates than men.

“This is not about a shortage of capability. It's about structures: how care is shared, how entry-level work is designed, where investment is flowing, and who employers see when they picture a good hire.”

There are several ways to combat the high NEET rate for young women:

• Increase affordable, accessible childcare for young parents and design education and training around caregiving rather than assuming its absence.
• Address underutilisation by offering guaranteed minimum hours and predictable rostering in entry-level retail, hospitality and care roles.
• Review entry-level job design to identify unnecessary barriers for people with caregiving responsibilities.
• Recruit more young women into apprenticeships and trades, with a focus on retention as well as recruitment. Getting women into trades only to lose them within 18 months achieves little.
• Address the undervaluation of care and service work, where women are already concentrated.

NEET rates are higher for Māori and Pacific young people, with about one in four not in training, education or employment.

“This reflects regional concentration of populations, over-representation in specific industries and occupations exposed to economic cycles and discriminatory practices,” Maretha says.

“The evidence on rangatahi employment consistently favours community-led and iwi-led delivery with wraparound support over centralised programmes, so this warrants specific investment.”