An analysis of female crime in New Zealand since 1950, as reflected in District Court and Children's Court prosecutions, is undertaken. The major aims of the study are, firstly, to provide a descriptive account of the nature of, and trends in, female crime in New Zealand; and, secondly, to examine the theory that women's emancipation has led to an overall increase in female crime relative to male crime, or to relative increases in employment-related offences, or to both. It is found that female offence rates are generally much lower than male rates. However, females engage in a wide range of illegal activities, and female and male offence profiles show more similarities than differences. Crime rates for both sexes rose markedly between 1950 and the mid-1970s, then began to level off in many major areas. No overall increase in female crime relative to male crime is found.In fact, sex differences have tended to increase rather than decrease. Convergence between the sexes is found only in adult and juvenile fraud (including social security fraud), adult forgery, and juvenile wounding and drugs offences (other than cannabis).No evidence is found that converging trends are employment-related.Further, conventional indices of emancipation correlate with the converging rates no better than with other offences, and no better than do other measures of social change.It is concluded that the emancipation of women is not responsible for the few instances of convergence found.