The given table compares the employment patterns for males and females in New Zealand between 1993 and 2003.
Overall, it can be clearly seen that men accounted for the majority of the workforce in most industries across both years. However, the gender gap narrowed in every single sector over the decade.
Looking at the details, IT, at the outset of the period, accounted for a significant share of the employment patterns for males (80%), and farming, which ranked second, stood at 75%, followed by 68% of building and 55% of manufacturing. Nevertheless, all of them experienced considerable declines to 70%, 65%, 60%, and 52%, respectively, in 2003. In contrast, a substantial growth from 45% and 14% in 1993 to 50% and 40% in 2003 was observed in the figures for commerce and services.
When it comes to the proportion of females, services showed the highest percentage of employment patterns (85%) in 1993, which was almost three times higher than that of farming (25%). Meanwhile, the former dropped drastically to 60% in 2003, whereas the latter increased to 35%. Interestingly, although IT recorded the lowest share (20%) at the beginning, which was almost three times as low as that of commerce (55%), its figure jumped to 30% at the end. Similarly, manufacturing and building underwent a rise between 1993 and 2003, going up from 45% and 32% to 48% and 40%.