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Prue Hyman
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
'Lesbians and Gay Men Flirting with/Disengaging from Vital Statistics: Same Sex Relationships and the New Zealand Census 1971/2001'
This paper discusses lesbians' and gay men's relationship with the New Zealand Population Census. Do we want to be visible in official statistics? Lesbian feminists have over the years been doubtful about this. Certainly we do our own surveys, documenting our characteristics and the discrimination we encounter, in order to strategise community priorities and political action. But official population counts are different. Aren't they bound to involve considerable undercounting of lesbian/gay individuals/couples?
Unwillingness to tell 'them' about our lives, suspicions about the use of knowledge about individuals (such as benefit issues - despite the protections of the Statistics Act), and other reservations about definitions and safety would mean that many lesbians/gay men won't record this. The resultant undercounting could be used by those seeking to downgrade equality moves and deny equal rights. Census (mis)information could add fuel to the claims that figures often used for the prevalence of homosexuality from Kinsey onwards of around 10% are exaggerated.
And even the visibility from those who do identify and factual information could be used against us, particularly if it shows that the 'pink dollar' phenomenon is a reality that we are better off financially than the general population. On the other hand, without good information, the realities of discrimination against us can be challenged and the need for policies to reduce it discounted. And the Census is the easiest source for basic factual information, even though it can't document discrimination.
Some Wellington lesbians organised a 'dykecott' (boycott) of the 1981 New Zealand Census to protest our exclusion from its categories and the social oppression of lesbians more generally. But gradually, whatever the motives, the Census has been slightly more inclusive, because lesbian/gay couples living together (and only this group - probably a pretty small proportion of all of us) and willing to identify as such, are now encouraged each to say that they are living with their partner. Since gender is also identified, the Census can count this number of same sex couples and compare their characteristics with those of opposite sex couples. This has been done in 1996 and 2001. Express Editor, Victor van Wettering, wants the Census to go much further and ask questions about sexual orientation. He has complained to the Human Rights Commission over Statistics NZ's failure to do so, arguing that we are 'clearly being treated less favourably because the government is depriving itself of the information it needs in order to consider policy in relation to gay and lesbian people' (Express, 22 May 2002).
What has emerged from the two sets of results so far? In 1996 3,255 couples so identified, increasing to 5,070 in 2001. The 56% increase is probably not realistic but a reflection of greater acceptance in answering the question, while in fact both figures, as expected, are clearly vast underestimates.
Well over half of the couples so counted were women, (55.7% in 1996/ 56.% in 2001) and of such lesbian couples, as many as 28.5% in 1996/33.9% in 2001 had children in their household, compared to 11.6%/17.6% for gay men, and 55%/52.1% for heterosexual couples. What of the pink dollar? The income data available is striking, confirming the major influence of parenting on income, and the similarity of the gender gap for those in lesbian/gay couples and straight couples. Yes, gays/lesbians in couples without children have higher average family income levels than their opposite sex counterparts, with 26% in 1996/39.3% in 2001 of lesbian couples, 36%/48.6% of gay male couples and 16%/24.3% of opposite sex couples reporting family income above $70,000. However for those with children in the household in 2001, 64.1% of lesbian/gay couples, less than the 74.5% of opposite sex couples, reported incomes above $40,000.
The full paper will discuss in more detail these results and the history, controversies and campaigns over engagement with the Census.
Bio: Prue Hyman is a feminist economist and Research Associate in Women's Studies at Victoria University of Welllington, New Zealand. Formerly Associate Professor of Economics and Women's Studies at VUW, her 1994 book Women and Economics: A New Zealand Feminist Perspective covers a range of theoretical and applied areas. She spent two years in government on secondment at the NZ Ministry of Women's Affairs and is heavily involved with gender analysis and policy issues. Active in the International Association for Feminist Economics and the NZ Women's Studies Association, she spent 6 years on its Board of the first and is helping organise the November 2003 Conference of the WSA.
<prue.hyman@vuw.ac.nz>