Venu Menon
Wellington, August 10,2023
The Child Poverty Indicators Report 2023 found Maori and Pacific children continued to face barriers to living in quality housing.
But rates for Pacific children had significantly improved, the report showed.
The report, which looked at the wider impacts of poverty on children and families in New Zealand, said tamariki Maori and particularly Pacific children faced much greater barriers to food security.
But those rates showed a downward trend as compared to the last two years. The latest data showed 13% of all children ( 0-14years ) lived in households where “food runs out sometimes or often, compared with 20% in 2019-2020.”
Eight of the nine child poverty measures showed a reduction since 2017-2018, while all three primary measures of child poverty were now lower than they had been over the past 10 to 15 years for which comparable data was available, the report showed.
“I’m heartened we are seeing meaningful decreases in crucial statistics, but I know there is a lot of work ahead to really shift the dial. No child should be in poverty,” Minister for Child Poverty Reduction Jan Tinetti said.
The report compared trends over time based on ethnicity and socio-economic status, as well as other demographics.
“It’s good to see that some of the longstanding disparities affecting tamariki Maori and Pacific children are showing signs of improvement,” Tinetti noted.
The minister said fewer children were living in poor quality housing, and “despite the tough economic conditions, those living in households spending more than 30% of disposable income on housing has remained stable.”
The Child Poverty Related Indicators gauged the broader impact of poverty on the lives of children, and fulfilled the government’s obligation under the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018 to report annually on the causes and consequences of child poverty in the day-to-day lives of children in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The five current Child Poverty Related Indicators (CPRIs) include housing affordability, housing quality, food insecurity, regular school attendance and avoidable hospitalisations.
The CPRIs have been reported on since the last four years. The latest CPRI report is from July 2021 to June 2022.
COVID-19 was a disrupting factor in this year’s reporting, with survey sample sizes being smaller than in previous years, affecting precision.
Nevertheless, this year’s report showed an improvement in longer-term trends. The number of children living in poor quality housing was down to 6% from 8% in 2018 – 19.
Avoidable hospitalisations for children aged up to 14 years remained stable despite the pandemic and difficult economic conditions, while 34% of children aged up to 17 years lived in households that were spending more than 30% disposable income on housing.
The report found one in 17 children (6%) lived in poor quality housing in 2021-22. That remained the same this year.
But the number of Pacific children living in poor quality housing appeared to have reduced, though they were still significantly higher for Pacific and Maori children.
The report found one in eight children (13%) experienced food insecurity in 2021-22, but those rates had since dropped and were in line with a longer-term trend noticed over the last 10 years. But there too, Maori and Pacific children continued to face greater barriers to food security compared to other ethnicities.
School attendance dropped sharply in 2022, partly driven by “justifiable absences” related to COViD-19.
Potentially avoidable hospitalisation rates had remained stable over the past three years, the report noted.
The CPRIs were reviewed every three years as per law, with the first review completed in August 2022.
A key change that will be reflected in the data around housing affordability for 2022-23 will be a sharper focus on children in low income households.
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Child Wellbeing and Poverty Reduction Group will be working with iwi/Maori and others in order to evolve the CPRI reporting in line with shifting child poverty trends.
Venu Menon is an Indian Newslink reporter based in Wellington
