TWO years ago Simon Chapple, a government economist in New Zealand, noticed that he and his wife had an increasing number of well-educated and attractive women friends, none of whom seemed able to find a male partner.

“There were a lot of women who would like to have a child, but they could not find a partner,” Dr Chapple recalls. He suspected that his women friends were victims of an emerging “man drought” — a dearth of well-qualified men of marriageable age.

Dr Chapple’s observations have now led to a government-funded study that has confirmed a widening gap in New Zealand between the numbers of well-qualified younger men and women. The study found that women graduates aged 25-30 outnumber by a third the number of similarly qualified men in New Zealand. Twenty years ago, 61 per cent of female graduates had partners with similar qualifications — a figure that has now fallen to about 50 per cent.

The report says that the man shortage is forcing women to “marry down”, become solo mothers or remain single. It even raises the possibility that more New Zealand women will enter lesbian relationships, and that rugged Kiwi males will have to do more childcare because their better-qualified female partners will be the primary breadwinners.

One 39-year-old senior policy analyst in Wellington — who did not wish to be named — told The Times that most of her female friends were well-connected, professional women but, like her, single. “They wonder how they are not in a relationship where children are possible,” she said. Formal dates were a thing of the past: “You just happen to be at the right place at the right time, you snog somebody and then you are in the sack — it’s not exactly a dating culture.”

The report — a joint study by academic and government experts — suggests that the dominant cause of the “man drought” is probably that well-qualified men are leaving New Zealand for higher salaries overseas. There is strong evidence, it says, that the men stay away while women in well-paid jobs overseas often return home because they miss family. The problem for single women is exacerbated by a surplus of females among migrants to New Zealand from Australia, the US and Europe.

The study says that New Zealand, which already has a female Prime Minister, Chief Justice and Governor-General, will in the future have more women in senior positions. It adds: “It is also possible, given an apparent excess of women, that more female same-sex couples will form.”

Melissa King, a women’s magazine editor in Auckland, tried to counter the despondency of New Zealand’s women by publishing a list of towns where men outnumber women.

Ms King said, however, that she had women friends in London who had reconsidered their intention to return to New Zealand because they feared that they would not find a partner. She also said that some New Zealand men were becoming arrogant.

“They think, ‘Wow, there are hundreds of available women. I don’t have to treat them that well’,” she said.

The Wellington policy analyst said that there were other options for single women. “All I can say is get a cat and a vibrator — it worked for me.”

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