Saturday, July 23, 2016

Almost half of sole parent beneficiaries are Maori

47.4 percent of Sole Parent Support beneficiaries are Maori. In the Youth and Young Parent category the proportion rises to 49.4 percent.


I've charted the latest June data below:




(Right click to enlarge)

Some commentary.

1/ This disproportion accounts substantially for the high rate of Maori child poverty. While Pacific children are also disproportionately poor, they are more likely to have working parents.

2/ The Maori numbers are dropping. There are 9.5 percent fewer on Sole Parent Support now than at June 2014.

3/ But, some with children aged 14 and older are now buried away in JobSeeker statistics. I suspect these numbers will be relatively high in regions like Northland and the East Coast

4/ The falling Maori teenage birth rate may make a positive reduction in the future OR the delayed births may still appear in the benefit numbers


I have included the notes regarding ethnicity that accompany the data tables.

Ethnicity data is self-identified and multiple ethnicities may be chosen by an individual as fits their preference or self-concept. Multiple selected ethnicities are then prioritised into a hierarchy. The Māori ethnicity has the highest priority in this hierarchy, followed by Pacific peoples. NZ European has the lowest priority. This is to ensure that smaller and politically significant ethnic groups do not get overwhelmed by the larger ethnic groups. A single ethnicity is assigned to an individual based on this hierarchy. Ethnic groups do not currently align with Statistics New Zealand ethnicity groupings.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A bit off topic but I wondered if you know anything about the petition to oust Susan Pilbrow from CYF Lower Hutt.

3:16

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Not until you alerted me to it. I am dubious about anonymous on-line petitions. By the same token I don't unquestioningly trust CYF.

Anonymous said...

Having had some recent experience with CYF in the Hutt (as part of a family Court matter where wifey was a support person) my wife doesn't trust them at all and that has driven her interest in this matter although we share your concerns about anonymous on-line etc... Irrespective of that we are confident from our own limited experience that all is not well.

3:16

Redbaiter said...

White Europeans basically taking care of almost every other races' children as well as their own.

Redbaiter said...

You censored my comment?

If so, I'm surprised.