Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand 2008

Introduction

ISBN 978-0-478-33506-4 (Print)
ISBN 978-0-478-33507-1 (Online)

The other sections and the appendices of the Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand 2008 can be found at www.msd.govt.nz

Acknowledgements
The Ministry of Social Development wishes to thank the following agencies for their help in producing this report:
Adolescent Health Research Group, University of Auckland
Barnardos New Zealand
Child Poverty Action Group
Child, Youth and Family
Children’s Issues Centre, University of Otago
Department of Internal Affairs
Department of Labour
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Families Commission
Housing New Zealand Corporation
Human Rights Commission
Institute of Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology
Ministry for Culture and Heritage
Ministry for the Environment
Ministry of Economic Development
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Health
Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs
Ministry of Transport
Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Ministry of Youth Development
National Network of Stopping Violence Services
New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services
Office of the Children’s Commissioner
Office for Disability Issues
Office of Ethnic Affairs
Paediatric Society of New Zealand
Presbyterian Support
Public Health Association
Relationship Services
Royal New Zealand Plunket Society
Save the Children
State Services Commission
Statistics New Zealand
Te Puni Kōkiri
The Treasury
UNICEF New Zealand
Women’s Refuge

Published by
Ministry of Social Development 
Te Manatū Whakahiato Ora
PO Box 1556
Wellington, New Zealand
Telephone: +64 4 916 3300
www.msd.govt.nz
Introduction
The Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand 2008 is the second in a series of Ministry of Social Development (MSD) reports which bring together a set of indicators of the wellbeing of children and young people in New Zealand. 

It has its origins in a number of child and youth policy initiatives and obligations, in particular:

•	New Zealand’s Agenda for Children: Making life better for children (2002), which included “enhancing information, research and research collaboration relating to children” as one of its action areas
•	Youth Development Strategy Aotearoa: Action for Child and Youth Development (2002), which included “building knowledge on youth development through information and research” among its goals
•	Sustainable Development for New Zealand Programme of Action (2003), which included a goal of developing an investment framework for child and youth development
•	Government’s obligation to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) to report every five years on the circumstances of New Zealand children under 18 years.

The first edition of Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand was published in 2004 to inform UNCROC reporting. As the next UNCROC report-back is due at the end of 2008, it is timely to look at the position of New Zealand children and young people today. 
Purpose of the children and young people indicators report
The children and young people indicators report has four main aims:

•	to provide measures of child and youth wellbeing and monitor them over time 
•	to compare New Zealand with other countries on measures of child and youth wellbeing
•	to present objective statistical information on the wellbeing of New Zealand children and young people that can inform public debate
•	to help identify key issues and areas where we need to take action, which can in turn assist planning and decision making.

Indicator reports enable us to examine the current level of wellbeing in New Zealand, how this has changed over time, and how different groups of the population are faring. Government policy, as well as individuals, families, communities, businesses and international factors influence the outcomes we report on. The cross-cutting nature of many social issues means that such reports cannot be used as a tool for evaluating the effectiveness of specific government policies.

Child and youth wellbeing 
In this report, “wellbeing” refers to those aspects of life that most people agree are important for a person’s happiness, quality of life and welfare. The Royal Commission on Social Policy (1988) is a useful source of research on what New Zealanders agree constitutes wellbeing and a decent quality of life. The Commission concluded that:

[New Zealanders] have said that they need a sound base of material support including housing, health, education and worthwhile work. A good society is one which allows people to be heard, to have a say in their future, and choices in life ... [they] value an atmosphere of community responsibility and an environment of security. For them, social wellbeing includes that sense of belonging that affirms their dignity and identity and allows them to function in their everyday roles. 

The Agenda for Children (2002), developed through a nationwide consultative process, reflected a broad social consensus on what constitutes child wellbeing in its report:

The wellbeing of children matters to us all. How well they do affects how we as a society do. All children need love, protection, support and opportunities to thrive during childhood, to grow up healthy and happy, to acquire the skills they need to form positive relationships, and to fully participate as adults. Children who are nurtured and supported throughout childhood are also more likely to reach their full potential at school, in higher education, in work, in sport or artistic activities and in society. This has positive benefits for individuals and for the whole of society.

Children have the right to be treated as respected citizens, to be valued for who they are, and to have their views considered in matters that affect them. Achieving this requires a change in the way childhood and children are viewed and understood. It means raising the status and profile of children in society. It also means keeping pace with the changes in children’s lives.

Similarly, the Youth Development Strategy Aotearoa (2002) highlighted some commonly understood aspects of wellbeing for young people:

There is a great deal of evidence on what young people need to develop in positive ways. They need to be successful: at school; in relating to friends and partners; and emotionally.

Building a youth development strategy on this information base makes it more likely that all young people will enjoy this success and that fewer will suffer from mental illness, unemployment, addiction, unwanted pregnancy, loneliness or become involved in crime.” 

A social wellbeing framework
In the Children and Young People indicator report, ten discrete components of wellbeing are identified and referred to as “desired social outcomes”. These are listed in Table IN1 on pages 5 and 6. This framework of 10 social wellbeing outcome domains was developed in consultation with a wide range of government and child-focused non-government agencies (NGOs) and is the same as the framework used in the 2004 edition of this report. It is similar to the social wellbeing framework first established by the The Social Report 2001, with adjustments to accommodate the specific focus on children and young people. Each domain reflects a component of social wellbeing that most people hold in common: health, care and support, education, economic security, safety, civil and political rights, justice, cultural identity, social connectedness and environment.
Social indicators
Social indicators are statistics that help us measure progress towards desired social outcomes over time. Some indicators measure an outcome of interest directly (such as unemployment in the Economic Security domain). Others do so indirectly (such as cigarette smoking, known to be a risk factor for later health outcomes).

A key feature that distinguishes social indicators from other kinds of social statistics is that a change in the measure must be able to be interpreted as an improvement or deterioration of some aspect of wellbeing. They are not simply descriptive statistics, nor are they input measures of social processes or policies. Thus, the number of dental nurses is not a social indicator, whereas the average number of decayed, missing and filled teeth at age 12 is an indicator of child health.

Social indicators may be objective or subjective. Objective social indicators represent social facts independently of personal evaluations (eg the infant mortality rate, the child poverty rate). Subjective social indicators are based on an individual’s perception and evaluation of social conditions. Examples of subjective social indicators in this report are “Positive relationships with parents” and “Fear of crime”.

The selection of social indicators will vary over time as more knowledge is gained about the population of interest. Thus, it is useful to supplement a set of social indicators with contextual statistical information. Other factors that can affect the selection of indicators are the availability of new data, the development of more robust measures, and changing social priorities as some outcomes improve.
Indicators in this report
There are 42 indicators in the report, seven more than the 2004 report. The set of indicators, with some proposed changes, was reviewed by experts in government and NGOs prior to the production of the present report. This was done to ensure that the indicators for each domain were the best available, that they were still relevant, robust and reported in the most appropriate domain. As in 2004, indicators have only been considered for inclusion if they meet the selection criteria listed below. Details of changes from the original set of indicators are listed in Appendix 1. 

Criteria for indicator selection
The criteria used to guide the selection of the indicators for the children and young people indicator report are set out in the table below.

Criteria	Description	
Relevant 	There is broad agreement in New Zealand society that the outcome being measured is a desired outcome for children and young people. There is well-established evidence in the research literature that the indicator is related to child and youth wellbeing. The indicator is based on children and young people rather than families.	
Nationally significant 	The indicator reflects progress at a national level and is not confined to particular areas or specific groups of children or young people.	
Able to be disaggregated 	The indicator should be capable of finer breakdown to show variation by age, sex, ethnic group, family status, region and socio-economic status wherever feasible.	
Valid 	The indicator accurately represents the phenomenon in question and is sensitive to changes over time.	
Statistically sound 	The indicator is derived from high-quality data and is statistically and methodologically sound.	
Replicable 	The indicator should be able to be defined and measured consistently over time to enable accurate monitoring of trends.	
Interpretable 	The indicator should be readily understandable to a broad audience. It should have a clear, normative interpretation so that change clearly represents an improvement or deterioration in what is being measured.	
Internationally comparable 	Wherever feasible, the measure should be consistent with international indicators to enable comparison.	
Data availability and quality
The report uses the most recent data available at the time of publication. For indicators based on annual data, this is generally for the most recent year. For indicators based on mortality data there can be a considerable lag between the year of occurrence and the release of data because of the time it takes to establish cause of death.

Some of the indicators are more robust than others. For example, those based on census data are complete. Results based on sample surveys will include sampling errors and apparent differences over time or between groups may not be statistically significant. In this report, the word “significant” is used only to mean statistically significant. Further information on data quality is included in the technical details for each indicator in Appendix 2.
Disaggregation by age
Where practicable, data has been presented to fit the UNCROC definition of a child (a person under the age of 18 years). However, this is not always possible and there is some overlap with standard definitions of youth that begin at age 15 (eg unemployment, employment, median hourly earnings, suicide, all of which cover ages 15–24 years).

Disaggregation by ethnic group
Two main approaches are used in the presentation of ethnic data: “prioritisation’ and ‘total response’. Prioritisation is an output method which reduces the ethnicity of a person who has given multiple responses to a single ethnic group, in a particular order (beginning with Mäori). This process ensures that the total number of responses equals the total population, but conceals diversity within, and overlap between, ethnic groups by eliminating multiple ethnicities from the data. Prioritisation has the effect of reducing the count of Pacific peoples in particular, and to a lesser extent, Europeans. The impact is greater for younger age groups because they are more likely to have multiple ethnicities.

While prioritisation is now being phased out of official statistics, it was still the only method available for the majority of indicators assembled for this report. The main method now in use in official statistics is ‘total response’. This output method records all responses and the total number of responses will therefore exceed the population. The output method used for each indicator in this report is noted in the technical details in Appendix 2.

Table IN1 Children and Young People, 2008, outcome domains and indicators
DOMAIN
	DESIRED OUTCOMES
	INDICATORS
	
HEALTH	All children and young people enjoy good physical and mental health with access to good-quality health care.
	•	Low birth weight births
•	Infant mortality
•	Immunisation
•	Hearing test failure at school   entry
•	Oral health
•	Obesity
•	Physical activity
•	Cigarette smoking at 14–15 years
•	Youth suicide	
CARE AND SUPPORT
	All children and young people enjoy secure attachment to parents and caregivers in a nurturing relationship where they are valued, respected and supported.	•	Positive relationships with parents
•	Witnessing violence in the home
•	Early childbearing	
EDUCATION	All children and young people obtain the knowledge and skills to enable them to be full participants in society.
	•	Children of parents without educational qualifications
•	Participation in early childhood education
•	School truancy
•	Reading literacy at age 15
•	Mathematical literacy at age 15
•	Scientific literacy at age 15
•	Retention of students in senior secondary schools
•	School leavers with higher qualifications
•	Participation in tertiary education
•	Tertiary qualification completion	
ECONOMIC SECURITY	All children and young people enjoy a secure standard of living that means they can fully participate in society. All young people achieve the transition to economic independence.	•	Children without a parent in paid work
•	Children and young people in low-income households
•	Unemployment
•	Employment
•	Median hourly earnings	
SAFETY
	All children and young people enjoy personal safety, and are free from abuse, victimisation, violence, and avoidable injury and death.	•	Unintentional injury mortality
•	Assault mortality
•	Bullying at school
•	Criminal victimisation
•	Fear of crime
•	Road casualties	
CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
	All children and young people enjoy fundamental human, civil and political rights, free from discrimination and exploitation. Children and young people are given the opportunity to participate in decisions that affect them.	•	Voter turnout	
JUSTICE	All children and young people take growing responsibility for their actions, and have access to fair and equitable treatment within the justice system.	•	Police apprehensions of 14–16 year olds
•	Cases proved in the Youth Court	
CULTURAL IDENTITY
	All children and young people are able to participate in the culture and values important to them and their families and to feel secure with their identity.	•	Te reo Māori speakers
•	Language retention	
SOCIAL CONNECTEDNESS	All children and young people enjoy friendships and social, cultural and recreational activities that build confidence and security, promote healthy relationships, and encourage civic and social responsibility.	•	Telephone/mobile access in the home
•	Internet access in the home	
ENVIRONMENT
	All children and young people live in, and have access to, healthy natural and built environments.
	•	Children living with a parent who smokes
•	Household crowding	

Structure of the report
A demographic profile of children and young people in New Zealand opens this report. For each of the 10 outcome domains that follow, there is a short introduction and the indicators are then presented in a standard format. The report concludes with a summary section showing trends over time, differences between population groups, and comparisons between New Zealand and other OECD countries. For quick reference, indicator results are also presented in a summary table. 

Two appendices (one setting out changes since the 2004 report, the other providing technical details for each of the indicators), provide further information for interested readers.
Future reports
Children and Young People: Indicators of wellbeing in New Zealand is the second in a series of reports planned to coincide with New Zealand’s obligation to report to UNCROC every five years on the circumstances of New Zealand children under 18 years.

Feedback on this report on indicators of wellbeing for children and young people in New Zealand is welcomed. Comments may be sent to:

Project Co-ordinator
Social Monitoring and Reporting Team
Ministry of Social Development
PO Box 1556
Wellington
New Zealand

For more information on this report or to request copies, please email CYI@msd.govt.nz