By Australian, Barry Golding
My previous (2015) book, The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men included a section documenting the origin and development of Men’s Sheds in New Zealand and the creation of ‘MENZSHEDS NZ’ as a peak national body. In New Zealand the first Men’s Sheds were set up in Dunedin and Hamilton around 2007–8. By 2015 there were 87 across the country with proportionately more in rural areas.

The new book, published in October this year, provides an up-to-date account of how the Men’s Shed movement has progressed and grown in NZ since 2015. Now, in 2021, there are 121 Men’s Sheds. The New Zealand Shed density (number of Sheds by total population) in 2021 was around 25 per million, around one half of the density in Australia (51 per million, with 1,306 Men’s Sheds), but very similar to the density in Wales and Scotland where Shed growth has been recent and rapid.

My new book revisits eight New Zealand Men’s Sheds featured in 2015 (Hamilton, Taieri and South Dunedin, Kapiti, McIver’s Oxford, New Brighton, Picton and Redcliffs), as well as three new case studies (Auckland East, Kaiapoi and Porirua).

In summary:

Where did Men’s Sheds start?

• Men’s Sheds in community settings are a recent Australian invention. Many are called ‘MENZSHEDS’ in New Zealand.
• ‘The Shed’ in Goolwa opened in 1993 and was copied by others also in South Australia.
• The first two Men’s Sheds: ‘Dick McGowan Men’s Shed’ in Tongala, rural Victoria, and ‘Lane Cove Men’s Shed’, in suburban Sydney, New South Wales, both opened in 1998, leading to exponential growth and the national movement, with the first state and national associations formed in Australia from 2006.

Where have Men’s Sheds spread to?

• A decade after the first Australian Men’s Sheds opened, they had spread to all Australian states, Ireland, England, Scotland and New Zealand.
• In 2021 there are 18 national, State/Provincial peak Men’s Sheds organisations worldwide, (including MENSHEDS NZ).
• The history of all state and national movements worldwide to 2015 is documented in The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men.
• In 2021 there are seven national movements, with new movements in Canada, Denmark and the US.
• In 2021, Men’s Sheds are found in most towns and cities across Australia.
• In 2021 there are 2,736 Men’s Shed worldwide, with 800+ spread across all parts of the UK.
• The fastest recent growth in Men’s Sheds since 2015 has been in Wales, England and Scotland.
• In 2021 there are 460 Men’s Sheds just in Ireland. The Shed densities in the Irish Republic (of 83 per million population) are the highest in the world.
• There are also Men’s Sheds in Kenya (11), Iceland (4) France (3) Belgium and Netherlands. Why do they work and who do they work for?
• We know from the research summarised in my new book that it’s mainly older men who are no longer in paid work. The median Shedder age is 70 years in Australia, younger in Ireland.
• Evidence from research and the 124 Men’s Shed case studies in the new book document the positive impact on the health and wellbeing of men, their families and their local communities, thus some federal support for the Australian Men’s Shed Association, AMSA as part of the national Men’s Health Strategy. (No such support has been available to date in New Zealand).
• Sheds have achieved most traction in smaller rural towns, but also in places beset by crises or disasters: e.g., catastrophic bushfires, the Millennial drought in Australia; the GFC in Ireland, and on the Canterbury Plains in New Zealand after the Christchurch earthquake.
• This new book provides evidence that Covid-19 has had a huge impact on men and Sheds, which will be important to ‘reboot’ with the higher demand during post-Covid recovery.

Women’s Sheds

• Developed since 2010, also begun in Australia, discussed in detail in the 2021 book.
• Now 124 Women’s Sheds, half in Australia, most of the rest in the UK and Ireland, and three in New Zealand.
• Several case studies document positive collaboration between Women’s and Men’s Sheds.
• Very rapid (1,300%) growth worldwide since the 2015 book, since also hit hard by Covid.
• As for Men’s Sheds, it’s ‘somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk with’.
• We know from research that isolation at any age can be unhealthy and deadly, both for men and women.