Category: numbers

Most people have a vague idea that education is for intelligent people who want to increase their human capital and how to leverage it more effectively, and that educated people more or less run everything. For these reasons, education correlates fairly closely with being part of the Establishment.

Many will be surprised to read that there are no significant positive correlations with being of European descent and having any of the university degrees. Two of them are even negative: the correlation between being of European descent and having a Bachelor’s degree is -0.03, and with having a Master’s degree it is -0.02.

The correlations between being of European descent and having an Honours degree or a doctorate were 0.16 and 0.22, respectively.

This is explainable by the fact that surprisingly few graduates in New Zealand were born here.

The correlation between being born in New Zealand and having a Bachelor’s degree was -0.61; with having an Honours degree it was -0.45; with having a Master’s degree it was -0.59 and with having a doctorate it was -0.32.

One can predict from this that the correlations between being Maori and having a university degree are significantly negative, and indeed they all are stronger than -0.40.

Because our immigration system makes it easier for people who have university degrees to come to New Zealand, we can see that the Pacific Islander and Asian populations – a large proportion of which were born overseas – are much better educated than most people might realise.

Pacific Islanders in New Zealand are much less likely than Kiwis of European descent to have an Honours or a doctorate degree, but the correlation between being a Pacific Islander and having a Bachelor’s degree is only -0.10, and with having a Master’s degree it is only -0.08.

Asians, for their part, are much, much more likely than the average Kiwi to have a university degree. The correlation between being Asian and having a university degree was 0.28 for a doctorate, 0.60 for a Master’s degree, 0.41 for an Honours degree and 0.64 for a Bachelor’s degree. All of these are significant.

The correlaton between being born in North East Asia and having a Bachelor’s degree was a very strong 0.72.

Looking at the correlations between belonging to certain income bands and having a certain educational level underlines the degree to which an education is the ticket to social advancement in New Zealand.

The correlations between having no academic qualifications and being in any of the income bands between $10-40K were all over 0.70. Having no academic qualifications also had correlations of 0.84 with being a regular tobacco smoker, 0.76 with being on the invalid’s benefit, 0.57 with being a single parent, 0.57 with being on the unemployment benefit and -0.68 with net median income.

So by a variety of measures, it’s clear that a person’s level of academic qualifications are generally a pretty good indicator of where they stand in socioeconomic terms.

There were already significant improvements in socioeconomic standing for Kiwis who only went as far as NZQA Level 3 or 4.

Having NZQA Level 3 or 4 as one’s highest academic qualification had correlations of -0.26 with being a regular tobacco smoker, -0.21 with being on the invalid’s benefit, -0.07 with being a single parent, 0.05 with being on the unemployment benefit and 0.12 with net personal income.

These are already vastly better statistics, and the step up from finishing high school to having a university degree is just as great as the step from having no academic qualifications to finishing high school.

Having an Honours degree as one’s highest academic qualification had correlations of -0.64 with being a regular tobacco smoker, -0.55 with being on the invalid’s benefit, -0.49 with being a single parent, -0.39 with being on the unemployment benefit and 0.72 with net personal income.

It’s evident, therefore, that a higher education is extremely strongly correlated with general well-being. The ultimate cause of this might well be natural intelligence, which is of course out of the scope of this study. However, in so far as education correlates with intelligence, we can make an educated guess at the habits of educated New Zealanders by looking at education.

Interestingly, the correlations between education levels and religion spanned the whole spectrum. Some religious traditions in New Zealand are exceptionally well eduated on average; others exceptionally poorly.

The best educated are the Buddhists and the Jews. The correlation between being Buddhist and having no qualifications was -0.72, with having NZQA Level 3 or 4 it was 0.43 and with having an Honours degree it was 0.52. The correlation between being Jewish and having no qualifications was -0.70, with having NZQA Level 3 or 4 it was 0.42 and with having an Honours degree it was 0.76.

Catholics are the next best educated religious demographic, which is a reflection of the large proportion of Catholics that were born overseas and had to get through the immigration system. The correlation between being Catholic and having no qualifications was -0.32, with having NZQA Level 3 and 4 it was 0.19 and with having an Honours degree it was 0.31.

Curiously, the next best educated demographic were of those who had no religious affiliation, and the bulk of these people were born in New Zealand. This might not surprise any readers who are materialist atheists, because this sort of person dominates the universities of this nation.

The correlation between having no religion and having no qualifications was -0.08, with having NZQA Level 3 and 4 it was 0.15 and with having an Honours degree it was 0.27. It may be that a fair proportion of these people were born into a religious family but then came to reject their faith after exposure to university culture.

The average New Zealander who identifies as a Christian has a significantly poorer education than the average New Zealander. The correlation between being a Christian and having no qualifications is 0.15, with having NZQA Level 3 and 4 it was -0.34 and with having an Honours degree it was -0.30. Probably this is a reflection of the fact that there are a fixed number of hours in the day to read books and so reading the Bible must necessarily come at the opportunity cost of reading non-fiction.

The most poorly educated, however, are Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses – probably a reflection of the predatory and aggressive proselytising culture of these movements.

The correlation between being a Mormon and having no qualification was 0.40, with having NZQA Level 3 or 4 it was -0.04 and with having an Honours degree it was -0.40. The correlation between being a Jehovah’s Witness and having no qualification was 0.74, with having NZQA Level 3 or 4 it was -0.41 and with having an Honours degree it was -0.71.

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This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, published by VJM Publishing in the winter of 2017.

The Conservatives are a strange sort of movement. In many ways they appear to be some kind of rump movement of people who didn’t like it when National decided to move into the 21st century.

The strongest correlation between voting Conservative in 2014 and voting for another party in 2014 was with National – this was 0.77. This is strong enough to suggest that many Conservative voters would have been former National voters, or would have been severely tempted to vote National in 2014.

National was the only party to have a significant positive correlation with voting Conservative in 2014.

There were two parties that were close to uncorrelated. The correlation between voting Conservative in 2014 and voting New Zealand First in 2014 was 0.01, and with voting ACT it was 0.13.

The former of these is probably because both movements compete for the angry, scared old person vote, and the latter is probably because both movements share an indifference towards the poor.

Voting for any of the left-wing parties had significant negative correlations with voting for the Conservative Party in 2014, further emphasising the degree to which the Conservative movement appeals (and is intended to appeal) to disaffected National voters.

The correlation between voting Conservative in 2014 and voting Greens in 2014 was -0.42, and with voting Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party it was -0.54. This pair involved slightly weaker correlations than for the other three parties, primarily because Green and ALCP voters are closer to middle aged.

The correlation between voting Conservative in 2014 and voting for the Labour, Maori or Internet MANA parties were -0.63, -0.64 and -0.64 respectively.

Age is the main reason for the strong negative correlations between voting Conservative and any of these parties. The correlation between voting Conservative in 2014 and median age was 0.75, which means Conservative voters are almost as old as National voters.

Conservative voters are even more likely to be on the pension though. The correlation between voting Conservative in 2014 and being on the pension was 0.64, compared to a correlation of 0.50 between voting National in 2014 and being on the pension.

Conservatives are also less educated than average. Whereas the correlations for voting National in 2014 and having any of the university degrees were all positive and either significant or bordering on it, the correlations for voting Conservative in 2014 and having any of the university degrees were all negative and bordering on significant.

Females are less unlikely to vote Conservative than they are to vote National. The correlation between being female and voting Conservative in 2014 was -0.19, compared to a correlation of -0.35 between being female and voting National in 2014.

One major way the two differ is with respect to wealth. The average National voter is much wealthier than the average Conservative one. The correlation between net median income and voting Conservative in 2014 was only 0.06, compared to National’s 0.53.

In fact, looking at the correlations with income bands tells us that wealth is the major differentiator between Conservative and National voters.

The income band that had the strongest positive correlation with voting Conservative in 2014 was the $20-25K band, which was 0.17. All of the correlations between voting Conservative in 2014 and any income band above $25K were negative (although they were all very weakly correlated; not close to significant).

By contrast, all of the correlations between voting National in 2014 and any income band above $60K were positive and significant.

One of the largest differences was that with median family income. The correlation between median family income and voting National in 2014 was 0.42; for voting Conservative it was -0.08.

Oddly, although the average Conservative was more likely than the average National voter to be a Christian, these tended to belong to denominations that were less part of the establishment than the National voters.

The correlation between being a Christian and voting Conservative in 2014 was 0.37, compared to 0.29 for voting National in 2014.

Conservatives, though, were much more likely to belong to the Brethrens. The correlation between being a Brethren and voting Conservative in 2014 was 0.54, compared to 0.25 with voting National in 2014.

Conservatives were also much more likely to be Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ratana, Pentecostalists or “Christian not otherwise defined” than National voters, who were more likely to be Anglicans, Presbytarians or Catholics.

Also, the average National voter is slightly less likely to be religious, whereas the average Conservative is slightly more likely to be religious.

The average Conservative is also less likely than the average National voter to be a Kiwi of European descent. The correlation between being of European descent and voting Conservative in 2014 was 0.46, compared to 0.60 between being of European descent and voting National in 2014.

All of this suggests that the main Conservative constituency is those who are like National Party voters in many demographic ways, but who do not have the same level of wealth or social status. It could even be that there is a degree of resentment among them because they are often both old and poor.

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This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, published by VJM Publishing in the winter of 2017.

Some stereotypes are true; others are not. One of those that is not true is that Maoris dominate all working-class industries. Although (as described elsewhere) many working-class industries and occupations are heavily populated by Maoris, this isn’t the full story.

The correlation between working in the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry and being of European descent (0.37) was stronger than the correlation between working in that industry and being Maori (0.22). Part of the reason for this is the number of family-run farms, especially on the South Island, that are run by Pakeha.

Working in the mining industry was also much more strongly correlated with being of European descent (0.25) than with being Maori (0.08). This is a consequence of that a large proportion of the Maori population lives in Auckland and thus far from where most of the mining takes place.

Being Maori did have significant positive correlations with a number of generally working-class industries, in particular transport, postal and warehousing (0.47), manufacturing (0.44), education and training (0.43), electricity, gas, water and waste services (0.42) and administrative and support services (0.37).

One point to note here is that these industries are not so much working class as they are people-focused. It might be that much of the association between being Maori and being working class is because many people-focused jobs happen to be working class ones and Maori gravitate towards people-focused jobs.

The correlations with median personal income give us a good indication of which industries in New Zealand are the best paid.

The strongest positive correlations between median personal income and working in a particular industry were 0.76 for professional, scientific and technical services, 0.69 for financial and insurance services, 0.54 for information media and telecommunications and 0.49 for rental, hiring and real estate services.

The strongest negative correlations between median personal income and working in a particular industry were -0.40 for manufacturing, -0.29 for transport, postal and warehousing, -0.23 for agriculture, forestry and fishing and -0.15 for mining.

The negative correlations were weaker than the positive ones for the reason that anyone in gainful employment – in any industry – is almost guaranteed to be wealthier than all beneficiaries and the majority of pensioners.

The correlations with education reflected that the highest paying industries were also the ones that generally required the greatest degree of previous training and therefore education.

The strongest of all was the correlation between working in scientific, technical and professional services and having a Master’s degree – this was 0.94. There is nothing suprising about this because often a Master’s degree minimum is necessary for a professional job.

The correlations between working in a particular industry and being born in New Zealand are interesting because they can tell us what sort of person is most likely to successfully get through our immigration system. Because our immigration system prioritises the sort of person who has a skill that New Zealand has a shortage of, these people will be disproportionately many in some industries.

Foremost of these was scientific, technical and professional services. The correlation between working in this industry and being born in New Zealand was -0.47, which tells us that a fair number of these workers have moved here from overseas.

The correlation between being born in New Zealand and working in financial and insurance services was even more strongly negative, at -0.56. The main reason for this is probably because the bulk of this industry in New Zealand is based in Auckland and that’s also where most foreign-born people are.

Many of the people who own their own farms work at home in a family business. This is evident from the strong positive correlation between working at home and working in the agriculture, fishing and forestry industries, which was 0.81, and the very strong positive correlation between working unpaid in the family business and working in the agriculture, fishing and forestry industries, which was 0.90.

One trend that makes sense if considered from an economic psychology perspective is that the better paid a person’s job is, the more likely they are to work full time.

The industries that had the strongest positive correlation with working full-time were professional, scientific and technical services (0.52), financial and insurance services (0.48) and information media and telecommunications (0.44).

There are several reasons for this, but the major one is that anyone of a mind to learn the skills necessary to do jobs in these industries are usually also of a mind to work full-time and to earn as much money as possible during this time.

The other major one is that anyone with the capital to employ a person with these skills is likely to be a serious operator and consequently will be looking to get full productivity out of their employees.

Perhaps the best way to determine which industries are the best paid are to see which of them have the strongest correlations with high income bands.

The industries that had the strongest correlations with low income bands were hospitality in the $5-10K band; mining in the $15-20K band; healthcare and social assistance in the $20-25K band; agriculture, forestry and fishing in the $25-30K band; electricity, gas, water and waste services in the $30-35K band; and manufacturing and transport, postal and warehousing in the $35-40K band.

These are the industries for people who are generally doing it hard. The jobs are not well paid, and they are insecure, and they are often seasonal. Usually they are also jobs that have a high turnover (hospitality is particularly well known for this).

Where jobs are more stable, regular and predictable, we can also see a rise in which income band their workers belong in.

The industries that had the strongest correlations with medium income bands were construction and retail trade in the $40-50K band; administrative and support services in the $50-60K band; education and training in the $60-70K band; and wholesale trade, public administration and safety and arts and recreation services in the $70-100K band.

Construction is arguably the top of the working class industries, because even though the majority of the labour is manual it involves very high amounts of capital. The other five industries in this group (leaving aside retail trade) are the start of the knowledge industries, in that they generally demand a higher level of prior education.

The industries that had the strongest correlations with the high income bands were information, media and telecommunications, finanical and insurance services and professional, scientific and technical services at $100-150K, and rental, hiring and real estate services at $150K+.

In other words, if a New Zealander works in any of these industries, the odds are that they have a six figure salary. This is because these industries all, like construction, involve gigantic amounts of capital, but unlike construction they are knowledge industries and the workers in these industries are in higher demand and shorter supply.

Rental, hiring and real estate services involves not only big money but employees that work on a commission and not a salary. This explains why working in this industry has its strongest correlation with the highest income band.

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This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, published by VJM Publishing in the winter of 2017.