Study One

Executive summary

Background

Higher education confers significant private benefits for graduates, such as higher earnings and rates of employment, and also generates wider social benefits for communities and society. Māori and Pacific Peoples (Pacific) are under-represented and underserved within Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa) universities and experience persistent and entrenched inequities across education, health, justice and other social domains. Gaining a higher education qualification has the potential to reduce disparities and has been a key government strategy for improving Māori and Pacific Peoples’ wellbeing. Despite the growth in the number of Māori and Pacific Peoples gaining PhDs, little is known about these students’ longer-term outcomes in terms of their employment, health and wider wellbeing.

Purpose

This study is the first in-depth examination, at the population level, of the education, economic, health and social outcomes of Māori and Pacific PhDs. Focusing on the period 2003–2022, it documents the outcomes of Māori and Pacific PhDs at the time of graduation, and at critical junctures following graduation. It also considers their outcomes relative to those of Māori and Pacific Peoples without a PhD, and PhD graduates who are neither Māori nor Pacific. Doing so helps us better understand the benefits to Māori and Pacific Peoples of having a PhD.

Our analysis uses linked individual-level data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure. Data were collected for all 996 Māori and 438 Pacific PhD graduates from 2003 to 2022. For comparative purposes, we also selected a propensity-matched sample of non-Māori non Pacific (nMnP) PhD graduates (n = 1386), and a sample of Māori and Pacific Peoples without a PhD from the residential population (n = 3210 and n = 1374, respectively) for “community” comparison.

Key findings

The economic and social outcomes of Māori and Pacific PhD graduates were broadly comparable with those of other PhD graduates (e.g., home ownership rates). For some indicators (e.g., annual earnings), the outcomes of Māori PhDs were significantly better.

Across most measures, Māori and Pacific PhD graduates had better outcomes than members of their communities without a PhD. They were more likely to be employed in professional roles, have higher earnings, and report higher levels of volunteerism. Health benefits were less clear, although Māori and Pacific PhD graduates were more likely to live in health-promoting areas and less likely to have serious health issues requiring hospital-level treatment than Māori and Pacific Peoples without a PhD.

Implications

Our study indicates that attaining a PhD improves career and economic opportunities as well as social and health outcomes for Māori and Pacific graduates. Our findings highlight the need for the Aotearoa tertiary education system to promote and support behaviours, actions, services and resources to increase the numbers of Māori and Pacific students, and to reduce educational barriers, through to the highest level. Boosting higher education success for Māori and Pacific students not only has the potential to reduce disparities in Aotearoa across a range of outcomes but also create benefits for graduates’ whānau and communities and for society in general.