Pacific living standards
The Ministry of Social Development starts work this month on a Pacific Living Standards project.
The project, by MSD's Centre for Social Research and Evaluation (CSRE), parallels the main Living standards research. It involves translating the Living Standards questionnaire into six different languages - Samoan, Cook Island, Fijian, Tokelauan, Niuean, and Tongan - and interviewing 500 people.
Living Standards Research Project Manager Linda Angell says the Pacific Living Standards survey is being done because data from the 2000 survey indicated that Pacific peoples living in New Zealand had lower standards of living and experienced more hardship, on average, than other groups.
"However, the small numbers of Pacific respondents made it difficult to do any robust analysis in this area. We felt it was important to focus on attaining a larger sample size to enable us to really explore the living standards of Pacific peoples residing in New Zealand and to evaluate what factors contribute to their living standards outcomes."
CSRE has also recently completed a survey of 5,000 people as a follow-up to its 2000 Living Standards research, to find our how living standards have changed in the past four years, and why people experience different standards of living.
The research uses the New Zealand Economic Living Standard Index (ELSI) developed by CSRE.
The survey covers a range of issues including health, accommodation, work, personal support networks, life history and social circumstances. It also includes a range of child-specific questions to assess the impact of families' economic situations on children.
A descriptive report on the results will be available in December this year. The explanatory report, which will explore background variables which may explain differences in living standrds amongst people, will be published in June 2005.
For more information: Linda.Angell001@msd.govt.nz
