diversity report 2020 · the 164 projects included in this year’s survey involved 192 unique...
TRANSCRIPT
This Is Us, Disorient Pictures for RNZ
Diversity Report 2020 Gender and ethnic diversity in content funded by NZ On Air
Purpose: This is the fifth report of an ongoing series which will monitor gender and ethnic diversity at the key creative levels in projects funded by NZ On Air.
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Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Executive summary……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...4
Scripted and Factual content………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5
Producers of funded content – gender and ethnic diversity ..................................................................................................................... 5
Directors of funded content – gender and ethnic diversity ....................................................................................................................... 7
Directors of funded content - gender by genre ......................................................................................................................................... 10
Writers of funded content – gender and ethnic diversity ....................................................................................................................... 15
Genre ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 18
Regional spread of production companies ................................................................................................................................................ 23
Music Funding 2016 – 2020 ........................................................................................................................................................................ 26
Music Funding – New Music Single ........................................................................................................................................................... 27
NZ On Air’s role: what we will do ................................................................................................................................................................ 30
Moving forward – Expanding the scope of this report ............................................................................................................................. 33
Appendix 1 – Methodology .......................................................................................................................................................................... 34
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Introduction
For the past five years NZ On Air has published a Diversity Report as both a response to, and a contribution towards, discussions about gender, ethnicity and regional production representation in the local screen sector. NZ On Air, as a key funder of local content, is in a unique position to report industry trends.
This report monitors gender and ethnic diversity among key personnel of NZ On Air-funded projects, as well as regional spread of production companies. While our funded content comprises a small amount of total local output, we do not expect the trends in commercially funded content to be significantly different.
We have now gathered five years (March to March) of comparable Scripted and Factual data which allows us to assess emerging trends and notable data shifts.
This report also monitors the gender balance among applicants and recipients of NZ On Air music funding over a four- year period for New Music Single and New Music Project funding.
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Executive summary
This fifth Diversity Report includes survey responses from 164 Scripted and Factual projects funded between 2019 and 2020 that were fully delivered by March 2020, and not included in last year’s report. Now that we have five consecutive years of data, we can report on consistent trends in several areas of the NZ On Air funded production sectors.
The key findings are: • Women continue to be well represented among producers and writers, making up 58% of producers surveyed
and 49% of writers this year but the gender imbalance among directors continues – with 41.9% of directors identifying as female in the latest survey, compared to 57.4% male.
• In 2020, 23.5% of producers identified as Māori, an increase on the previous year. • Male directors have outnumbered women in the genres of drama, documentary and children’s programming
across the previous three years of this report and in this year’s report male directors make up 63% of drama directors and 65% of directors of children’s content. Women number 55% of documentary directors.
• There is a consistent under-representation of Asian creatives in all three roles surveyed: producer, director and writer/researcher.
• Auckland still dominates as the centre of production and remains the most ethnically diverse of the main centres.
• The number of female music artists funded, whilst in line with the percentage that applied, continues to be significantly lower than male artists. In most music funding rounds women make up 20-30% of funding applicants.
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Scripted and Factual Content
Producers of funded content – gender and ethnic diversity
164 projects were surveyed this year, which included 205 individual producers performing 302 producer roles.
• For the fifth year in a row female producers outnumbered male producers of funded content. 58% of producing roles were filled by women, 41% by men and 0.3% by producers identifying as gender diverse. According to the 2018 Population Indicators provided by Statistics NZ, 51% of the New Zealand population is female and 49% is male.
• This gender split between producers has remained stable over the five years of this report. • The proportion of producers identifying as Pākehā or another European ethnicity is 78%, 4 points lower than last
year and getting closer to the 2018 Census (where 70.2% of New Zealand’s population identified with one or more European ethnicity).
• 0.3% of producer roles were filled by individuals identifying as Middle Eastern, Latin American or African (MELAA). In previous reports 1% to 2% of producers have identified as MELAA, a level more in line with the general population statistic of 1.5%.
• Producers identifying as Asian dropped from 6% in 2017 to 3% in 2018 but increased slightly to 4% in 2019. In 2020 this number is 5%. This is still low when compared to the 15.1% of New Zealanders who identify as one or more Asian ethnicities according to the 2018 Census information.
• In 2020, 23.5% of producers identified as Māori, an increase on the previous year. The most recent census figures show 16.5% of New Zealanders identify as Māori. Pacific Peoples made up 9% of surveyed producers, in line with the overall New Zealand population figure of 8.1%.
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Producer Ethnicity
100%
90%
80%
87% 88%
82%
78%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
18%
17%
22%
24%
10% 9% 6%
3% 1%
0%
6%
3% 2% 0%
7%
2% 4% 3%
9% 5%
0% 1%
2017 2018 2019 2020
European Māori Pacific Peoples Middle Eastern/Latin American/African Asian Other Ethnicity
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Directors of funded content – gender and ethnic diversity
This year’s survey includes 211 unique directors performing 309 director roles.
• Of the three key creative roles surveyed over the first three years of this report, the director role has consistently shown the largest disparity between men and women. In 2016 and 2017 roughly two thirds of the director roles of content funded by NZ On Air were filled by men. This started to even out in 2018, with 44% of directors identifying as women though it was identified that a single project skewed this figure. In 2019 there were several projects that contributed to the closing of this gap to 47% female and 53% male. This year the numbers are slightly further apart with 41.2% of director roles being performed by women. The gender split between directors of different genre is notable and discussed in more detail below.
• 0.7% of directors identified as gender diverse in 2020. • The proportion of directors identifying as Pākehā or another European ethnicity was 70%, roughly the same as last
year and a level close to general population statistics. This year 19% of directors of funded content identified as Māori and 17% of directors identified as one or more Pacific ethnicity.
• The proportion of Asian directors increased from 4% to 5% this year, still notably lower than the 15.1% of the New Zealand population that identifies with one or more Asian ethnicity. 1% of directors identified as Middle Eastern, Latin American or African (MELAA).
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Directors by Gender
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
65%
63%
56%
53%
57.4%
50%
40%
47% 44%
41.9%
30%
33%
36%
20%
10%
0%
0% 1% 0% 0% 0.6%
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Male Female Gender Diverse
9
5%
90%
Directors by Ethnicity
80%
70%
81%
75%
69% 70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
23%
24%
23%
19%
17%
10%
0%
2017
0% 1%
2018
1% 1%
2019
5%
1% 2%
2020
European Māori Pacific Peoples Middle Eastern/Latin American/African Asian Other Ethnicity
3% 1%
12% 13%
5%
1%
15%
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Directors of funded content – gender by genre
The historic underrepresentation of female directors, observed both in previous years of this report and wider industry research, means a closer look at this data has been necessary and will continue to need to be closely examined despite the gradual equalisation shown in the 2019 report.
• Over the 2016 to 2017 period there was a clearly observable trend of underrepresentation of women directors in scripted productions, particularly drama and comedy. Women accounted for only 11% of drama directors in 2016, and 20% in 2017.
• In the 2018 report, women made up a higher proportion of drama directors at 34%. However, that year’s data included the eight female directors of the feature film Waru. The film’s collaborative directorial structure is unlike other scripted projects included in previous years of this report. If those eight women were instead counted as one, 22% of drama directors were women in 2018.
• To allow clarity on the actual figures, the Diversity database now includes the ability to look at the gender diversity minus a specific project that may skew the data in a similar way. That said, the figures for genders diversity for directors of drama are much more even this year.
• In 2019 Drama - including Comedy - there were 77 projects and the split was 52% male directors, 48% female directors. Out of the 27 Children’s projects funded, 52% were directed by males, 48% by females. The split on Documentary projects was 55% female directors and 45% male.
• In this 2020 report, the gender divide for drama directors has increased with 63% male, 35% female and 2% gender diverse. The split for directors of children’s content increased to 64% male and 36% female. Documentary remains the stronger area for women with 55% female, 43% male and 1% gender diverse among directors.
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50% 46% 45% 43%
40% 38%
34%
30% 20%
10%
male directors female directors gender diverse directors
2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 0%
1% 0% 0% 0% 2%
55% 55% 54% 60%
Directors by Gender - Documentary 100%
90%
80%
70% 66%
60%
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100%
90%
Directors by Gender - Drama
89% 90%
80%
70%
66%
63%
60% 54%
50% 46%
40%
34%
35%
30%
20%
10%
0%
11% 10%
2%
0% 0% 0% 0%
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
male directors female directors gender diverse directors
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100%
90%
80%
70% 66% 64%
60% 54% 52%
50%
40% 48%
46%
30% 33% 36%
20%
10% 6% 3%
0% 0% 0% 0%
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
male directors female directors gender diverse directors
29%
61%
Directors by Gender – Children’s
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Director Gender Numbers by Gender of Producer 160
140 137
120
108
123
100
80
60
40
20
2 1 2 0 0
Male Producer Female Producer Gender Diverse Producer
Male Director Female Director Gender Diverse Director
0
54
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Writers of funded content – gender and ethnic diversity
The 164 projects included in this year’s survey involved 192 unique writers performing 258 writing (or researching) roles
• 49.6% of the writing roles were filled by women, 49.2% by men and 0.4% of writers identified as gender diverse. This gender split between writers has been fairly stable over the past three years, trending away from the split in in 2016 of 62% Male vs. 37% Female.
• 62% of writers identified as Pākehā or another European ethnicity which is slightly lower when compared with the 70.2% of the population that identifies as such.
• 0.4% of writers in this year’s report were Middle Eastern, Latin American or African (MELAA). According to the 2018 Census 1.5% of New Zealanders identify as MELAA.
• Asian writers increased from 4% in previous years to 7% in 2019 and to 9% of those writing NZ On Air-funded content in 2020. This still tracks below the 15.1% of the population who identify as Asian but does show a steady trend upwards possibly due to NZ On Air’s funding diversity policies.
• The proportion of Māori writers has fluctuated over the first three years of this report. 20% of writers surveyed this year identified as Māori. 12% of writers were Pasifika, up from 8% in 2018.
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100%
Writers by Gender
90%
80%
70%
60% 62%
52.6% 53.0%
49.6% 50% 48.1%
49.2%
40%
46.8% 45.9%
37%
35.2%
30%
20%
10%
1.0% 0.0% 0.6% 0.6% 0.4% 0%
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Male Female Gender Diverse
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1%
Writers by Ethnicity
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
56%
72%
62%
50%
40% 37%
30%
20%
10%
0%
16%
6%
1% 2% 1%
20%
21%
12% 8%
26%
12% 9%
2%
2017 2018 2019 2020
European Māori Pacific Peoples Middle Eastern/Latin American/African Asian Other Ethnicity
1% 1% 1% 6%
8%
0%
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Genre
The split of the gender and ethnicity of writers, producers and directors across the genre of projects is as in the charts below.
• The production of scripted Drama is 66% European key creatives, with 29% Māori, 13% Pacific Peoples and 4% Asian. • Current Affairs is more ethnically diverse with 48% European, 2% Māori, 34% Pacific Peoples, and 2% Asian. • The biggest genre (in regard to the number of productions) is Documentary. Its breakdown is 69% European,
24% Māori, 11% Pacific, and only 1% Middle Eastern/Latin American/African and 3% Asian.
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100.0%
Genre - Gender
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
52.6%
45.6%
49.2%
46.2%
50.0% 50.0%
59.6% 59.8%
38.8% 38.2%
58.3%
41.7%
51.5%
48.5%
50.0%
50.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
1.8%
0.0%
0.0%
0.6%
2.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Comedy Current Affairs Development Documentary Drama Event Information Regional Media
Male Female Gender Diverse
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9%
%
100%
Genre - Ethnicity
90%
80%
82% 81%
79%
70%
63%
69%
66%
64%
67%
67%
60%
50% 48%
40%
30%
25%
34% 31
38%
24%
33%
20%
10%
5% 4%
11%
13%
6%
11%
11
3% 3% 4% 4%
2% 1%
0% Children
0% 2%
Comedy
0% 2%
Current Affairs
0% 0% 0%
Development
1%
Documentary
1% 2%
Drama
0% 0% 0%
Event
0%
Information
0%0% 0% 0%
Regional Media
European Māori Pacific Middle Eastern/Latin American/African Asian Other
7%
11% 11%
%
13%
28%
29%
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100.0%
Fund Type - Gender
90.0%
83.3%
80.0% 77.8%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
54.5%
45.5%
64.5%
61.3%
63.0%
54.5%
43.7%
50.3% 48.7%
66.7%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.9% 0.7% 0.0%
Event Broadcast Interactive Online Audio Radio Telefeature TV Development TV Production Webseries Webseries Development
Male Female Gender Diverse
33.3%
16.7%
22.2%
37.0% 32.3%
35.5%
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100%
Fund Type - Ethnicity 100%
100%
90% 83%
80%
70%
73%
65% 65%
68%
72%
60%
54%
50% 45%
40%
30%
20%
10%
28%
6%
19%
10%
23%
29%
6%
33%
19%
26%
13%
5%
17% 18%
8% 4%
0% 0%0%0% 0%
0%0% 0% 0% 0% 0%0% 0% 0% 0%0% 0% 0% 2%
0% 0% 0% 3% 1% 0% 0%0% 0% 0%
Event Broadcast Interactive Online Audio Radio Telefeature TV Development TV Production Webseries Webseries Development
European Maori Pacific Middle Eastern/Latin American/African Asian Other
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Regional spread of production companies
The proportion of production companies that completed NZ On Air funded projects and were based in Auckland briefly dipped over the three years preceding 2019, from 82% in 2016 to 69% in 2018 and back up to 83% in 2019 and 2020. The majority of productions remain centred in Auckland. Stats NZ has Auckland’s population current estimate at 34.7% of New Zealand population and 37.9% of the GDP.
In addition to the Scripted and Factual projects that this report surveys, NZ On Air also supports 12 access radio stations through our Platform funding stream. This platform funding is not included in this report, but it does go some way to increase the regional spread of supported entities to non-urban areas of New Zealand.
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100%
Production Company Locations
90%
80%
78%
83% 83%
70%
69%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
13%
6%
3%
12%
4%
15%
8%
6% 3%
9%
3% 4%
0% 2017 2018 2019 2020
Auckland Wellington Christchurch Other
25
0%
3% 1% 6% 10%
15% 20% 21%
60%
50%
40%
30%
68% 70%
100%
90%
80%
Ethnicity - Auckland Gender - Auckland Gender Diverse
0.5%
Male 45.9%
Female 52.7%
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Music Funding 2016 – 2020
This is the fifth year in which this report monitors the gender balance among applicants and recipients of NZ On Air music funding. The following pages show the gender split of those that applied for and received New Music Single and New Music Project funding over the last two years.
For the purpose of this report music funding applicants were split into three categories based on the gender of the main creative force (singer/writer) behind each work: female, male, or ‘mixed’, where both men and women shared key vocal and song writing roles.
As shown by the data that follows, 20-30% of music funding applicants are female artists, 60-70% are male artists, and 5-10% are mixed. These yearly trends were mirrored at the more micro level of individual funding rounds (four or five per year per funding scheme).
The number of applications from female artists is low when compared to the general population. However these numbers broadly reflect the current APRA AMCOS NZ membership: the organisation reports 23.8% of their members are female. APRA are actively working to increase this. The percentage of female artists funded has gradually increased over the surveyed years to 38%.
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New Music Single - Applications
100%
90%
72%
66%
67%
66%
65%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
22%
29% 29% 27%
26%
30%
20%
7% 6% 9%
7% 10% 5%
2015/16
2016/17
2017/18
2018/19 0%
2019/20
Female Male Mixed
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New Music Single - Funded
100%
90%
80%
67%
65% 70%
58% 58% 60%
49% 50%
40%
22%
29%
28%
32%
38%
30%
20%
11%
2015/16
5%
2016/17
4% 2017/18
11%
2018/19
13%
2019/20
10%
0%
Female Male Mixed
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Female Male Mixed
2019/20 2018/19
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
15.6% 12.8% 20.0%
40.0%
30.0%
33.3%
60.0%
50.0%
53.9%
New Music Project - Funded 100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
64.4% 70.0%
2018/19 2019/20
Female Male Mixed
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
12.2% 16.4%
20.9% 30.0% 26.5%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
62.7% 61.2%
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
New Music Project - Applications
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NZ On Air’s role: what we will do
Connecting and reflecting Aotearoa
NZ On Air invests in public media for many audiences. We find and support great audio/visual content that holds a mirror up to New Zealand and our people. Among other responsibilities set down in the Broadcasting Act, we are charged with supporting content of interest to women, minorities in the community including ethnic minorities, and promoting NZ music.
To be creatively and culturally authentic, funded content must have adequate numbers of people from diverse backgrounds in key creative roles. There are many views and ideas in the industry around how to improve production team and music diversity.
For our part, NZ On Air will -
· Back and promote diversity in all that we do · Continue reporting this unique data to provide accurate information to underpin sector discussion · Encourage industry guilds to discuss these matters with their members and propose options for change · Continue prioritising content made by Māori production personnel whenever we can, following the principles of
our Rautaki Māori, and report outcomes in our Annual Report.
Regarding gender diversity, we will -
· Add an assessment criterion for applications to our Scripted funding stream. We will ask if the project supports and reflects gender equality both on screen and within the production crew. See our Scripted roadmap.
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· Evaluate another year’s data for New Music Funding grants to women artists, so we can clarify trend information, then consult on if and how we could work towards improvement.
Regarding ethnic diversity, we will -
· Prioritise projects from teams that show a commitment to diversity, particularly for projects that are for targeted audiences. Our main areas of interest, based on population size, are Pasifika and Asian audiences.
· Conduct audience research to clarify needs so we can plan to increase output for Pasifika and Asian New Zealanders.
· Continue reporting on Pasifika outcomes in our Annual Report. · Continue to fund projects from an increasing range of productions companies across an evolving range of
platforms.
Regarding regional diversity, we will focus our efforts on improving regional media output and audience engagement.
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22
29 29
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
2018 2019 2020
Number of Platforms distributing funded projects
58
89
101
0
20
40
60
80
100
2018 2019 2020
Number of Production Companies with funded projects
We are including the below data in this report for the first time to show the wide distribution of funding for content, across platforms and production companies, which we feel does lead to greater diversity of content and content-makers.
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Moving forward – Expanding the scope of this report
NZ On Air is committed to the monitoring and provision of quality diversity information and believe there are several areas that this report could expand to cover. This needs to be balanced against the time commitment from productions in the provision of the information. The survey questions for the projects delivering ahead of the 2021 Diversity Report now include age range, primary location of principle photography and disability.
Looking ahead there are a number of additional strands of information we would consider, these include:
· Increasing the crew positions for which information is gathered. The information gathered could include heads of departments, lead presenters and actors. This would be time consuming and would need careful definitions of who counts as core crew, for example: lead actors vs extras and so on.
· Financial information including the total production budget (allowing the reporting of financial investment by region, and the level of funding that goes towards ethnic groups) and amounts paid to individuals (allowing a calculation of gender pay gaps etc.) Maintaining privacy would be vital in doing so.
· Diversity of content. This would be more complicated to define but the correlation between the diversity of key personnel and the subject matter of productions could be informative.
· Applications vs. Funded. The report currently covers the diversity of application vs successful applications in Music funding but doesn’t for Factual or Scripted.
Finding the right mix of valid and vital information whilst managing administrative burden for the sector will require consultation. NZ On Air will be considering these and potentially other additions and will seek feedback from the sector before implementation.
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Appendix 1 - Methodology
For this report we have surveyed Scripted and Factual production and development projects funded between 2014 and 2020 that were fully delivered by March 2020.
Diversity Reports 2016 and 2017 presented separate survey results for Television and Digital projects, in line with our old funding strategy. In keeping with our new platform neutral NZ Media Fund this year’s report combines all Television and Digital survey results. In this Diversity Report 2020, to ensure this data is comparable, we have retrospectively merged the Television and Digital data from the previous two years presented here.
We asked respondents to provide gender and ethnicity information about the producers, directors and writers involved in the funded project. Researchers could be included as writers if they performed a significant writing role. Respondents also provided information on where the production company was based.
This report includes data from 164 projects (both Development and Production).
As this report focuses on the volume of funded projects, an individual’s gender and ethnic identity is counted towards each project they worked on. That means one person’s data may be included multiple times in this data set.
If a person indicated that they were both, for example, a producer and a director of a funded project they were counted once in each category.
For the ethnicity section respondents were asked to identify the top line ethnic groups each key personnel identified with: European, Māori, Pacific Peoples, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American or African (MELAA), or Other. They were then asked to specify the applicable ethnicities within these groups. For example, the European ethnic group includes NZ
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European/Pākehā, Australian, British, and other European ethnicities. These ethnic categorisations reflect those used by Statistics New Zealand.
The survey is designed so that multiple ethnic groups can be selected for each key personnel. Where a person identifies with more than one ethnic group they are counted in each applicable group. This is why the proportions of people belonging to each ethnic group may not add up to 100 percent.
In line with Statistics NZ standards this survey includes a third gender category, ‘Gender diverse’ to acknowledge people who do not identify as either male or female.
Music funding applicants were split into three categories based on the gender of the main creative force (singer/writer) behind each work: female, male, or ‘mixed’, where both men and women shared key vocal and song writing roles.
1. This methodology, focussed on completed development and production projects, is different to the NZFC gender report which measures development funding.