The New Zealand part of an international survey of consumer confidence has found women are much more pessimistic than men.
The half-yearly survey by MasterCard, which has been running since1993, found consumer sentiment overall in New Zealand was about neutral with an index reading of 49.9 points, up from 42.7 in the second half of 2012.
The New Zealand country manager for MasterCard, Albert Naffah, says there's a real gender gap opening up in the survey.
The survey shows New Zealand is the third most pessimistic country in the Asia-Pacific region, ahead of Australia and Bangladesh, but well behind Myanmar on 97.8 points and India on 83.9.
