Average household crowding index in Lower Hutt City, New Zealand

All cells in this table have been randomly rounded to base 3 prior to calculations.Blank spaces represent nil or zero or the figure too small to be expressed. The figure was suppressed if there were fewer than 50 in the subject matter population of the area.Owing to rounding percentages do not always sum to 100 percent.Crowding Index:Crowding Index calculated as (Number of Bedrooms Required) / (Number of Bedrooms in Dwelling) where 'number of bedrooms required' is determined according to the Canadian National Occupancy Standard.Canadian National Occupancy Standard states: 1. there should be no more than two people per bedroom 2. parent or couples share a room 3. children under five years, either of same or opposite sex, may reasonably share a bedroom 4. children under 18 years of the same sex may reasonably share a bedroom 5. a child aged five to 17 years should not share a bedroom with one under five of the opposite sex 6. single adults 18 years and over and any unpaired children require a separate bedroom

The Canadian National Occupancy Standard (CNOS) has been developed by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to help determine the number of bedrooms a dwelling should have to provide freedom from crowding. The CNOS is based on the number, age, sex and interrelationships of household members.

The CNOS states that:
No more than two people shall share a bedroom
Parents or couples may share a bedroom
Children under 5 years, either of the same sex or opposite sex may share a bedroom
Children under 18 years of the same sex may share a bedroom
A child aged 5 to 17 years should not share a bedroom with a child under 5 of the opposite sex
Single adults 18 years and over and any unpaired children require a separate bedroom
In the work of CMHC, the CNOS is used in combination with other indicators such as state of repair and cost to produce a composite indicator of "core housing need". It is not possible to make direct comparisons between levels of crowding in Canada and New Zealand, since the Canadian data is presented in a different format. Namely, a household in Canada is deemed to be crowded if it has insufficient bedrooms (according to the CNOS), and if it would have to spend thirty percent or more of its total before-tax income to obtain alternative accommodation of an adequate size. According to these criteria, in 1996, 2.1 percent (222,430) of Canadian households were deemed to be crowded.

nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz -> Housing -> Crowding-occupancy rate > Average Crowding Index Using Canadian National Occupancy Standard for Households in Private Occupied Dwellings 1991, 1996 and 2001