Insights reports
What is life really like for young women in Aotearoa NZ?
YWCA Auckland's Insights research explores what life is really like for young women in Aotearoa New Zealand, one topic at a time. Using an explicitly feminist and intersectional lens, we examine the key issues affecting their lives and identify practical interventions and solutions that organisations and individuals can take to create meaningful change.
This page also features research produced by YWCA Aotearoa.
Your Voice Matters Survey 2026
YWCA Auckland asked 1,159 young women and gender-diverse people across Aotearoa about their wellbeing, financial security, safety and hopes for the future. Discover what they told us – and what needs to change.
How do young women feel about their Bodies
A YWCA Auckland Insights report. Young women live in a world ideally primed for body obsession. Social media keeps us hooked into a validation trap hinged on images. There is much we can do to fight back against the culture of body dissatisfaction and systems that profit from it. Action can be taken from the individual and community level right through to the regulatory, education, industry and public health level.
Our Anxious Young Women
A YWCA Auckland Insights report. Young women in Aotearoa New Zealand are under more pressure than ever before and their mental health is suffering as a result. Anxiety disorders for girls and women are on the rise - what's going on?
Young Women and Disability
A YWCA Auckland Insights report. 1 in 4 women and girls in Aotearoa New Zealand live with a disability and they often face a triple whammy of discrimination: as women, as disabled people, and as young people.
Period Poverty
A YWCA Auckland Insights report. Access to education should not be determined by a child’s gender, yet almost a quarter of New Zealand women have missed school or work because they have been unable to afford sanitary items. When it comes to menstruation, there is shame, fear, and embarrassment - all can disrupt an individual's ability to participate fully in life.
Herstory Report
The HerStory report, conducted in 2017 by YWCA Aotearoa, responded to a gap in research in Aotearoa, which often generalises the voices of young women between the age of 15 and 30. Driven by a belief that young women in different age groups face different challenges and opportunities. This report presented some of those nuances in the experiences of young women.
Support our work
You can make a difference in young women’s lives by supporting our work.