New Zealanders’ perspectives on wellbeing and life satisfaction during the first year of COVID-19 have been examined to understand the impact of the pandemic on our daily lives.
A new report examines how the wellbeing of various groups in New Zealand responded in the immediate and medium term, over the first year of COVID-19. It analysed 13 wellbeing outcomes for 16 groups and showed wellbeing outcomes were significantly higher in June 2020 than in 2018 60 percent of the time and statistically lower only 3 percent of the time.
The positive effects included reported life satisfaction, whether people felt they had enough money to meet their needs, and in measures of trust and safety.
These positive impacts may relate to New Zealand’s immediate response to the pandemic, when compared to people’s experiences in other countries, and actions taken by the Government, whānau, hapū, iwi, and ethnic and community groups to support people in 2020.
The various impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are still emerging. This report examines wellbeing up to early 2021. It does not cover social inequities that may have since resulted from the pandemic or how wellbeing may have changed since this time.
The Social Wellbeing Agency’s role is to analyse data across the social sector to inform Government policy decisions. For this report, data was analysed from the New Zealand General Social Survey and the Household Labour Force Survey, carried out by Stats NZ.
This report supports the release of The Treasury's first wellbeing report Te Tai Waiora: Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand.(external link)
SWA-Wellbeing-during-the-first-year-of-COVID-19-v2.pdf [PDF, 1.3 MB]
SWA-Te-Atatu-Wellbeing-during-the-first-year-of-COVID-19-v2.pdf [PDF, 341 KB]
SWA-Info-sheet-Life-satisfaction-during-the-first-year-of-COVID-19-v2.pdf [PDF, 223 KB]
