Poverty in childhood has ongoing impacts on people’s health, education and wellbeing.
Child poverty has reduced recently. However, certain cohorts
of children and their families are more affected by poverty.
Māori, Pacific and disabled children are much more likely to be
doing it tough than non-Māori, non-Pacific and non-disabled.
Also, sole parent families and households dependent on benefits
are most likely to be in the most severe forms of poverty.
To meet the Government’s poverty targets we need a concerted
and continued effort to achieve better outcomes for these groups.
We won’t properly meet our poverty reduction targets unless we
reduce child poverty for all.
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Family Income
16.3% of mokopuna live in low-income households.
The target on this measure by June 2028 is 10%.
(Note this is the 50% median, after housing cost, fixed line measure).
For Māori, 17.8% are in income-poor households, for Pacific, it’s 16.3%, for Pākehā it's 14.1% and for disabled it is 17.6%.
Access to Essentials
11.0% of mokopuna live in households experiencing material hardship. The target by June 2028 is 6%.
The rates of material hardship for mokopuna Māori and disabled children are twice as high as Pākehā and non-disabled, and for Pacific children, it’s three times as high. About one in four Pacific children are in households in material hardship.
Warm Healthy Homes
In 2020/21, 6% of children lived in homes with major dampness
or mould problems, down from 9% in 2017/18.
But for Pacific mokopuna it’s still twice that at 12%, and for tamariki Māori it is also higher at 10%.
Access to Healthy Food
In 2020/21 one in six children lived in households where food ran out sometimes (12.0%) or often (2.9%) due to a lack of money.
Māori (26.4%) and Pacific (37.3%) are most likely to sometimes, or often, run out of food, compared with European children (10.9%).
Good health
The Covid-19 pandemic coincided with a drop in immunisation rates for diseases other than Covid-19.
In 2020/21 only 85.7% of all babies were fully immunised at age 8 months, for Pacific it was 84.2% and for Māori, it is even lower at 72.1%. The target for a protected community is 95%.
Every child living
their best life
While poverty can have serious impacts for children and their families, many communities are doing great work to mitigate the impacts of poverty. People helping people is a theme this year in the Child Poverty Monitor technical report.
We tell the stories of some community organisations and young people who are making lives better for those with low incomes and living in hardship.
In doing this work these young people are also building their mana, their sense of self-worth and their ability to overcome challenges.
Go to www.occ.org.nz/wellbeing to read these stories, told through the voices of rangatahi.
Policy Decisions
It's time to recognise and remove the barriers getting in the way of all tamariki living their best lives. That means confronting the impact that racism, ableism and colonisation is having on children and their families. Income matters too. Policy can make a difference.
Read more.