This report sets out the progress towards the outcomes of the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy (the Strategy) and the progress on the Child Poverty Related Indicators (CPRIs) for the 2022/23 financial year.
It shares the most recent data on the experiences of New Zealand’s children and young people aged up to 24 years, including disaggregated data on Māori children and young people and disabled children and young people, where available.
The Children’s Act 2014 requires an annual report on progress towards achieving the Strategy’s six outcomes. Reporting on the outcomes demonstrates the impact of the Strategy and government work to support child and youth wellbeing. This report covers the progress between July 2022 and June 2023, where data is available. The 2022/23 Annual Report is the third statutory report. A voluntary Annual Report for the 2019/20 year was published, which established baseline data for 21 of the Strategy’s 36 child and youth wellbeing indicators.
This report is used to monitor progress towards the outcomes of the Strategy and the CPRIs. It can also be used by a range of other groups for a variety of purposes. Children, young people and families can use this report to understand what experiences other young people are having and find out how progress towards the Strategy outcomes is going. Communities, providers and NGOs can use this report to understand what experiences children and young people are having, to inform your response in your community.
Summary of Strategy outcomes shared in the Annual Report
The report shares a variety of experiences for children and young people across the six Strategy outcomes in 2022/23. The report indicates that, on many of the measures, a majority of children and young people in New Zealand are doing well. However, not all children and young people in New Zealand are having the same positive experiences across all measures. There are some positive emerging trends, with more young people making positive choices and some incidences of harm against children and young people decreasing. There have also been worsening outcomes on some measures of child poverty and the Child Poverty Related Indicators, while there has been no change on some measures of mental health and education.
Key Strategy outcome findings for 2022/23 are:
- Youth offending has fallen for all young people and for Māori young people. Rates of hazardous drinking and smoking daily have fallen for all young people. Rates have fallen for Māori young people too, but rates are still higher than for other groups of children. However, rates of daily vaping also increased significantly for all young people, with Māori and disabled young people being even more likely to vape every day than non-Māori and non-disabled young people.
- There was an increase in the year-on-year poverty rates for children on some of the poverty measures but a fall in rates in the medium term: From 2021/22 to 2022/23, there were increases in poverty rates based on the measures of material hardship and household income after housing costs have been paid. This likely reflects the current economic situation, with high inflation and increasing cost of living. The longer-term trends for child poverty, however, show a decrease in the rates of children living in poverty.
- Disparities still remain for Māori children and young people, who experience higher rates of food insecurity than non-Māori children. This is the first year we can see the rates of food insecurity for disabled children, which shows that rates are disproportionately higher for disabled children than non-disabled children.
- Young people in New Zealand have variable experiences of mental health. The percentage of young people experiencing psychological distress has remained steady, after two years of large increases. This may indicate that the long-term trend of increases in rates of psychological distress is slowing, but we need to look at data over a longer time period to confirm this.
- Potentially avoidable hospitalisations for all children and young people have increased to similar levels similar to the pre COVID-19 period (2018/19). Disparities remain for Māori children and young people, who continue to experience higher rates of potentially avoidable hospitalisations than all children.
- Attendance rates have risen in 2022/23 compared to the previous year, but it’s too early to tell if attendance has stabilised. Performance in maths fell, while the number of young people in employment, education or training increased.
Key Child Poverty Related Indicators findings for 2022/23 are:
- 21% of children aged 0-14 years (~206,000) children lived in households experiencing food insecurity, with no change from 2019/20 to 2022/23.
- 50% of children (aged 0-17 years) lived in households in the bottom 40% of the income distribution in unaffordable housing, where they spent more than 30% of their income on housing, with no change from 2019/20 to 2022/23.
- 6% of children (aged 0-17 years) lived in households with a major problem with dampness or mould, which is considered poor quality housing, with no change from 2019/20 to 2022/23.
- Rates of potentially avoidable hospitalisations are 62 per 1000 children. This rate has worsened since 2019/20.
- 48% of children attended school regularly, which is a decrease since 2019/20.
The five CPRIs are measures related to the causes and consequences of child poverty. These indicators help tell a broader story about the lived experience of children living in poverty in New Zealand. Over time, they can also tell us more about the impact of policies established to reduce child poverty and mitigate its consequences. The five CPRIs are a subset of the child and youth wellbeing indicators.
The Annual Report presents wellbeing data collated from eight government agencies for the 2022/23 financial year, including administrative and survey data. Where data is not available for the 2022/23 financial year, the most recently available data is presented.