Purpose
The 2008 New Zealand Living Standards Survey was a nation-wide face-to-face survey of 5000 households carried out by Colmar Brunton for the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) from June to October 2008.
The high level objectives for the 2008 LSS and associated analysis are to:
- gather the necessary information to enable the further development of the ELSI instrument (and other full-scale measures)
- the construction of a suite of deprivation indices reflecting different dimensions of deprivation
- international comparisons using non-monetary indicators
- update the information on the living standards of the population and subgroups within it to 2008, comparing the findings with those from 2000 and 2004, using an improved ELSI and other instruments contribute to the Working for Families evaluation
- improve and expand the technology available for tracking and better understanding trends in poverty and material hardship.
Methodology
The 2008 LSS was a nation-wide survey carried out by Colmar Brunton for the Ministry of Social Development from June to October 2008. The interviews were face-to-face and on average lasted 35 minutes.
A multistage sample design was used, essentially involving the random selection of an adult respondent from selected dwellings which were themselves selected from randomly chosen meshblocks. An adult for this purpose was a person aged 18 years or over.
The response rate was 70%. This compares well with the 2000 and 2004 surveys (68% and 62% respectively), and with Statistics New Zealand’s Household Economic Survey (62% in 2006-07 for the full survey, and 74% in 2008-09 for the shorter HES (Income)).
The report is structured as follows.
Section A gives the rationale and high level objectives for the 2008 LSS and associated analysis.
Section B outlines and discusses some of the key concepts that lie behind the use of non-income measures of material wellbeing (living standards) and describes the indices used in the three empirical sections which follow.
Section C uses a deprivation index (DEP) to describe the extent of material hardship in New Zealand, and to identify which groups are more likely to be lacking the basics.
Section D uses the recently developed EU deprivation index (called EU-1 in this report) to compare hardship rates for New Zealand with those in European countries. This complements the income-based international comparisons that have been the norm to date.
Section E describes the Ministry’s full-spectrum Economic Living Standards Index (ELSI), discusses the underlying conceptualisation of living standards used by it, then uses the ELSI to report on the full range of living standards from low to high, identifying which groups are doing well, and which are not.
Section F summarises the key findings and outlines the next steps for the analysis and reporting.
Key Results
1 The relativities between various population subgroups were much the same in 2008 as in 2004, with the same groups relatively well-off, and the same groups over-represented in hardship figures …….
- older New Zealanders (65+) have low hardship rates (4%) relative to the whole population (13%) and children (0-17) have relatively high hardship rates (19%), using the quite stringent Level 2 threshold on the ELSI measure
- the low hardship rate for older New Zealanders means that the mix of current public provision (mainly NZS) and private provision built up by most of the current cohort over their lifetime (including equity in own home) are ensuring very low hardship rates among older New Zealanders
- the hardship rate for sole parent families is around 4 times that for those in two parent families (39% and 11% respectively)
- beneficiary families with dependent children have a hardship rate of around 5 times that for working families with children (50% and 11% respectively)…
- …. but as there are many times more working families than beneficiary families, there are around the same number from each group in hardship – half the children in hardship are from working families and half from beneficiary families
- sole parent families in work have a hardship rate (20%) well below that for sole parent beneficiary families (54%)
- Maori and Pacific people have hardship rates some 2 to 3 times that of those in the European or ‘Other’ groups
- families with 4 or more children have higher hardship rates (27%) than those with 1-2 children (17%)
- the subgroup relativities are similar to those reported in the Household Incomes Report in July 2009, using an after housing costs income measure of poverty
2 …. but there were some changes from 2004 to 2008 for some groups
- a definite improvement for children
- hardship rates fell from 26% to 19% (using ELSI Level 2 threshold)
- the gains were made mostly from low to middle income working families, with hardship rates for sole parent beneficiary families remaining steady at around 55%
- the gains for children in working families reflects the extra WFF support received by working families with dependent children and the increased employment opportunities from 2004 to 2008
- some evidence of an increase in hardship rates for adults in low to middle income households without dependent children.
3 International comparisons of hardship rates present a mixed picture for New Zealand ….
Using the recently adopted official EU measure of material hardship ….
- overall population hardship rates (13%) are around the median for the expanded EU (EU-25) and at the lower end of the rankings the ‘old EU’,
- older New Zealanders have low hardship rates (3%) relative to their counterparts in EU nations (EU-25 median is 14%) ….
- … but hardship rates for New Zealand children (18%) are above the EU-25 median (15%)
4 Children are significantly over-represented in hardship figures …. an enduring feature
- There has been a clear reduction in hardship rates for children …
- ….. but children are still significantly over-represented in the hardship group ….
- and around half of all children identified as in hardship come from working families
- Internationally, the comparisons with European countries show that New Zealand has above average hardship rates for children, and also has high child hardship rates relative to the rate for the total population