Data needed on GLBT at work
Nobody knows how many gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT) people there are in New Zealand workplaces. Nobody knows whether they earn more or less than the rest of the population, nor whether they suffer higher rates of unemployment or greater job insecurity. Without solid, reliable data there is no way of knowing whether this group suffers discrimination, nor whether the situation for them is improving.
These points were repeated many times by researchers spoken to by NEON. The reason the data does not exist is that Statistics New Zealand does not collect that information by asking people about their sexual orientation in the census.
For instance, surveys run by GLBT people themselves show slight differences in pay between gay, lesbian and heterosexual couples with children, according to Prue Hyman, research associate in gender and women’s studies at Victoria University. “But we never know if we’re getting a random sample. There’s evidence that we get a preponderance of people who are more ‘out there’, more online, more connected to the gay community. There’s evidence from overseas studies showing that you get respondents that are way above the average in education and income,” Hyman says.
One of the purposes of the census is to inform the government so they can formulate policy, says Robert Hesketh, director of the Office of Human Rights Proceedings. “Every one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination is asked about except sexual orientation and political opinion,” Hesketh says. Political opinion is polled when people vote in the election, but for sexual orientation, there is no data, he says.
Senior researcher for the AIDS Foundation, Peter Saxton, says nobody knows what all the problem issues are for GLBT people. “We’ve got great data identifying disparities because of ethnicity, sex and age, but because we don’t ask the question about sexual orientation we’re very much in the dark… Even once we’ve identified a disparity that might be caused by discrimination or poor service delivery, without doing regular surveys we don’t know if it’s improving or not,” Saxton says.
Random population-based surveys run the risk of missing or under-reporting the gay community because it tends towards geographical clustering, he says. “The difficulty is that with such low numbers, it’s hard to make robust estimates because the margin of error is so wide. Just recall what small sample sizes do to political polls! Where you suspect you have geographic clustering, you might also miss GLBT. The census is the one source of detailed information about small population groups. Without that, there’s very little useful information about gay people’s basic demographic status, such as their age breakdown and employment status.”
The Office of Human Rights Proceedings has been pressuring Statistics New Zealand to include a question on sexual orientation in the census. Hesketh says the lobbying has made a difference. In 2006, the questions were:
Are you in a Civil Union?
Is your partner male or female?
Are you in a de-facto relationship?
Is your partner male or female?
From that the census could deduce how many people were in same sex partnerships. However it excluded GLBT people who are not in a relationship or did not live with their partner.
Hesketh said Statistics New Zealand had a concern that some ethnic and religious groups would object to a question on sexual orientation. Both Hesketh and Saxton said Statistics New Zealand feared that people would not truthfully answer a question on sexual orientation, which would skew the data. “I think we’re incrementally going to get there,” says Hesketh. “In a few years people will become more comfortable with answering that question, and if the first few attempts are inaccurate, that will improve.”
What policymakers can do
Saxton says the onus is on researchers and data collectors to make it safe for people to answer questions about sexual orientation truthfully. In some ethnic and religious groups it is still going to be difficult for some people to effectively ‘come out’ on a census form unless they can be assured of anonymity. Being able to complete the census online would help some people with that, as might the current practice of allowing forms to be returned in sealed envelopes, he says.
What GLBT people can do
Gay people themselves have a responsibility too, Saxton says. “We now have laws that don’t criminalise us. The HR legislation does provide formal protection. It’s a much better place than it was 10-20 years ago, and there’s a point at which excuses run out. That’s not at all to underplay what homophobia does to people, especially for members of ethnic or religious groups that do not yet accept homosexuality as a fact of life. I have sympathy for people who don’t want to come out, but if we want the State to provide services that are relevant for us we do have to tick the box that says ‘gay’.”
What workplaces can do
Thirdly, there is an onus on workplaces to make their gay employees feel safe, Saxton says. “What’s important is not that a workplace knows what percentage of its workforce is gay, but that gay people feel safe to be able to claim workplace partner benefits for example. A company has to be sensitive to privacy issues.
“We have human rights legislation, but is it strong enough to remove discrimination in practice? There’s still progress to be made but we don’t know how much progress or in which areas.”
Protection against discrimination based gender identity is covered under the ground of “sex” in ss21(1)(a) of the HRA. The Commission is currently holding a Transgender Inquiry and wants to hear from transgender people about their experiences of discrimination, including difficulties getting or keeping a job because of their gender identity.