For example, workers in the clothing industry are predominantly women and still poorly paid and badly treated. Sweated labour, common in third world countries, is also happening in New Zealand. Often it is with out-workers spending hours sewing garments at home or in a small workshop, earning just a few dollars an hour. Among the worst off are immigrant women without residency. They are exposed to the worst abuses.
Women often suffer an extra burden performing a double shift doing most of the household tasks.
Many take part-time work because they have the prime responsibility caring for children. Seventy percent of part-time workers in New Zealand are women. Most often these are low paying jobs. Despite all the hype about New Zealand women being the first to get the vote there is a long way to go before there is real equality. Women earn on average twenty per cent less than men and there are signs the gap is widening, not closing.