Satisfaction running high in New Zealand

Nearly 9 out of every 10 New Zealanders are satisfied with their lives, Statistics New Zealand said today.

This finding comes from the New Zealand General Social Survey 2010. Principal statistician Paul Brown said the result was comparable to other developed countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

In addition, the survey showed nearly all New Zealanders (96 percent) felt they could get support from others in a time of crisis; and more than 90 percent had seen friends and over 80 percent had seen family they didn’t live with, at least once in the last four weeks.

However, life satisfaction and other results varied across different population groups within New Zealand.

“Younger and older New Zealanders were more likely than people in middle life to say they were satisfied with their lives. This may reflect the pressures of work and family responsibilities as people move through middle life,” Mr Brown said.

Unemployed people showed the lowest levels of overall life satisfaction (70 percent were satisfied). They were more likely than employed people or those not in the labour force to say they didn’t have enough money to meet their everyday needs and to say they had felt isolated from those around them in the last four weeks.

People living in one-parent family households were less satisfied with their lives than people living in other family types (77 percent were satisfied). They were also more likely to say they didn’t have enough money to meet their everyday needs, and to say they had problems with their house or flat.

Overall life satisfaction tended to go down as household income decreased. The biggest drop in life satisfaction occurred for people living in households with an income under $30,000 a year. People in lower income households were also more likely to report feeling unsafe walking alone in their neighbourhood at night and to say they had ‘fair or poor’ health than people in higher income households.

The overall results were similar to those reported after the first NZ General Social Survey, held in 2008.

Over 8,000 New Zealanders participated in the 2010 survey, carried out from April 2010 to March 2011. See more results at www.stats.govt.nz/nzgss.