Appendix: disabled people population and life outcome statistics

Collection of disability data

Disabled people face significant disparities in many life outcomes compared to their non-disabled counterparts, but until recent years data on disability in New Zealand was extremely limited. Data and evidence is key to supporting and measuring progress towards the Ministry’s vision of a non-disabling New Zealand.

The Ministry and Stats NZ continue to co-facilitate the Disability Data and Evidence Advisory Group (DDEAG), which meets regularly to provide advice and support to improve the amount and quality of disability data across the New Zealand data system. The group includes representatives from government agencies, Te Ao Marama o Aotearoa Trust (TAMA), the Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) Coalition, the Donald Beasley Institute and the New Zealand Disability Support Network.

A key success over the last seven years is the consistent adoption of the Washington Group Short Set (WGSS) of questions in a wide range of surveys across government, including the Census. This has led to an exponential improvement in the availability of data that allows us to compare outcomes for disabled and non-disabled people. However, there is still more to do to continue to build the evidence base around disability in Aotearoa to support the Ministry, the wider public system, disability groups and communities to improve outcomes for disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori and their families.

A key focus for the ongoing work programme of the DDEAG is on administrative data collection, which is particularly important within the context of Tatauranga Aotearoa Stats NZ’s progressive journey towards becoming an organisation that uses administrative data first.

A larger Community of Practice (CoP) meets monthly to enable connectivity between colleagues in government agencies who work in disability measurement and outcomes monitoring. The CoP now includes over 100 members from over 30 different agencies.

In March 2023, the Ministry established a new Data and Insights team. The team’s role is to provide robust, high-quality disability data, insights and advice, both within the Ministry and across the data system, that support better evidence-informed decision-making.

Key elements of the Data and Insights team’s work include:

Monitoring outcomes for disabled people against the eight outcome areas of the New Zealand Disability Strategy (NZDS).
IDI research to better understand the disabled population, and development of IDI code modules to support other researchers to include a disability perspective in their work.
Influence and stewardship across the data system through DDEAG and CoP to improve the availability and use of disability data.
Internal and external capability building and support on the use of disability data.
Supporting implementation of the Monitoring, Evaluation, Analysis and Learning (MEAL) Framework to centre the voices and lived experiences of disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori, and measure what is important from their perspective. Also, supporting Stats NZ as it progresses work on the future of the Census and towards developing a New Zealand Disability Data Framework, a recommendation of the UNCRPD examination in 2022.

Our population

The data below is taken from the 2013 New Zealand Disability Survey (2013 Disability Survey). Data from the 2023 Disability Survey will become available in late 2024. The 2013 data showed that:

An estimated 1.1 million New Zealanders (24 percent) were disabled at the time of the survey.
Disability prevalence increased with age, with 59 percent of people aged 65 years and over identified as disabled, compared with 28 percent of those aged 45–64 years, 16 percent of those aged 15–44 years and 11 percent of people aged 14 years and under.
The three most common impairment types New Zealanders experienced were mobility (13 percent), hearing (9 percent) and agility (7 percent).
Just over half (53 percent) of disabled people reported multiple impairments – males were more likely to experience multiple impairments than females in younger age groups (0–14 years), but for those aged 65 years and over, females were more likely to experience multiple impairments.
Disability prevalence varied by ethnicity, with 26 percent of Māori and 25 percent of Europeans identified as disabled, compared with 19 percent of Pacific peoples and 13 percent of Asian people. However, disability is strongly correlated with age, so the younger age profiles of Māori and Pacific Peoples masks the true extent of differences in disability rates.
When adjusted to the age profile of the total population, disability rates by ethnicity were:
Māori – 32 percent
European – 24 percent
Pacific peoples – 26 percent
Asian – 17 percent.

Of the 62,000 New Zealanders supported by the Ministry through DSS:

40 percent have an intellectual disability as their principal disability (many of whom also have a physical disability)
40 percent have autism as their principal disability
19 percent have a physical disability as their main disability.

People may have up to two primary disabilities listed.

Disparities in economic outcomes

Many disabled people live full, productive lives with mana and dignity. However, many disabled people continue to face significant disparities in many life outcomes compared to their non-disabled counterparts.

For example, data from Stats NZ’s Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) June 2024 quarter showed, compared with non-disabled people in the same age group, disabled people aged 15–64 years:

were less likely to be employed, with an employment rate of 40 percent, compared with 80 percent for non-disabled people
were less were likely to hold a post-school qualification (46 percent, compared with 59 percent)

In the June 2023 quarter, disabled people aged 15-64 years earned a lower median hourly income from wages and salaries ($28), compared with $31.83 for non-disabled people.

The data also showed that 46 percent of disabled young people (aged 15–24 years) were not in employment, education or training (NEET), compared with 11 percent of non-disabled young people.

Stats NZ’s Child Poverty Statistics (year ended June 2023) also showed that disabled children and children living in households with at least one disabled person were much more likely to live in households in material hardship.

Disparities in health and wellbeing outcomes

The New Zealand Health Survey has been collecting disability data since 2018/19. This shows that, compared with non-disabled people, disabled people experience significantly poorer outcomes in many areas. For example, in 2022/23, disabled people aged 15 years and over were:

much less likely to rate their overall health as good, very good, or excellent (57 percent, compared with 89 percent)
much more likely to have experienced high or very high level of psychological distress in the last four weeks (36 percent, compared with 9.5 percent)
more likely to have an unmet need in accessing primary health care
much more likely to have visited an emergency department at least once in the last 12 months (42 percent, compared with 15 percent).

Data from the 2023 General Social Survey also showed that disabled people face poorer outcomes across a number of wellbeing areas. For example, when compared with non-disabled people, disabled[1] people aged 15–64 years were:

less likely to rate their overall life satisfaction highly (7 or above out of 10) – 57 percent and 80 percent, respectively
less likely to feel the things they do in life are worthwhile (7 or above out of 10) – 67 percent and 84 percent, respectively
less likely to feel a strong sense of control over their lives (7 or above out of 10) – 54 percent, compared with 74 percent.

Disabled people aged 15–64 years were also more likely to:

say they didn’t have enough money to meet everyday needs (22 percent, compared with 10%)
have poor overall mental wellbeing (57 percent, compared with 25 percent)
have experienced discrimination in the last 12 months (36 percent, compared with 23 percent) – disabled people also had consistently lower levels of trust in other people and in institutions such as courts, education and health systems, Police, media and parliament than non-disabled people.

Data from the Youth Health and Wellbeing Survey, What About Me!, showed that disabled youth were twice as likely to experience serious distress (scores higher than 13 out of 24) compared to the New Zealand average (56 percent vs 28 percent). Disabled people are also at higher risk of victimisation than non-disabled people. For example, pooled data from the New Zealand crime and victim survey 2018 to 2023 showed that, when standardised for age, 49 percent of disabled adults had been a victim of sexual assault and intimate partner violence at some time in their lives, compared with 30 percent of non-disabled adults.

[1] Based on the WGSS questions.