Children living in households with material hardship in New Zealand
Year ended June 2013–2024, % of children
| Year ended June | % of children |
|---|---|
| 2007 | None |
| 2008 | None |
| 2009 | None |
| 2010 | None |
| 2011 | None |
| 2012 | None |
| 2013 | 18.1% |
| 2014 | 16% |
| 2015 | 17.5% |
| 2016 | 12.1% |
| 2017 | 12.7% |
| 2018 | 13.3% |
| 2019 | 13.2% |
| 2020 | 11.5% |
| 2021 | 11% |
| 2022 | 10.5% |
| 2023 | 12.5% |
| 2024 | 13.4% |
Definitions
Income: This data refers to the equivalised disposable household income. It is the household income divided by a factor that takes into account household size and composition. This is to allow living standards to be compared across households.
DEP-17 score: The DEP-17 index focuses on the low living standards end of the spectrum and includes questions about ‘enforced lack of essentials’, ‘economised, cut back, or delayed purchases a lot’, ‘in arrears more than once in last 12 months’, and ‘financial stress and vulnerability’. For more information: https://www.stats.govt.nz/methods/measuring-child-poverty-material-hardship#appendix2
'Material hardship' is defined as having a DEP-17 score of six or more, while 'Severe material hardship' is defined as having a DEP-17 score of nine or more.
Housing costs: Total housing costs consist of expenditure on mortgage payments, rent payments, property rates payments, and payments associated with building-related insurance.
AHC: After housing costs.
BHC: Before housing costs.
For more information
Limitations of the data
Stats NZ emphasises the need to look at the general trend over time and caution against reaching definitive conclusions from reported year-on-year changes.
Due to its relatively small sample size prior for some years, the underlying data source (i.e. the Household Economic Survey) was not able to deliver robust results when more precision is required in a given year.
The Household Economic Survey tends to have lower response rates from households in low socio-economic areas, which means that these households are often underrepresented in the sample.
Changes to data collection/processing
After thorough data quality analysis, Stats NZ is confident that the data produced for the year ended June 2024 is fit-for-purpose, within the margins of uncertainty on the estimates.
Data collection for the year ended June 2022 was disrupted due to COVID-19 alert level restrictions, lockdowns, and other disruptions, which resulted in a significantly reduced sample size. Users should note that margins of error are high when using 2022 data.
Data provided by
Dataset name
Child Poverty Statistics: Year ended June 2024
Webpage:
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/child-poverty-statistics-year-ended-june-2024/
How to find the data
At URL provided, select 'Child poverty statistics: Year ended June 2024 – CSV – corrected'.
Figure.nz appended the CSV files into one Excel file for processing purposes.
Import & extraction details
File as imported: Child Poverty Statistics: Year ended June 2024
From the dataset Child Poverty Statistics: Year ended June 2024, this data was extracted:
- Sheet: cp-national-datafile-csv
- Range:
D2:D811 - Provided: 810 data points
This data forms the table Child Poverty - Children living in households with low income and material hardship 2013–2024.
Dataset originally released on:
February 20, 2025
About this dataset
Child poverty statistics provide estimates of low income and material hardship rates for measures listed in the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018.
Purpose of collection
Statistics in this release are used as baseline rates by Government to set 3- and 10-year targets for reducing child poverty for the three primary measures specified in the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018.
Method of collection/Data provider
These statistics are based on the household economic survey (HES). This survey had a target sample size of 20,000 households, and an achieved sample size of approximately 19,100 households for the year ended June 2024.