The care of aged Maori

There are only 34,200 Maori aged 65 and older.

65+  34,200
75+  11,000
80+  5,000

In the total population  616,660 people are aged 65 plus.  160,000 are 80 plus.

So only 3 percent of 80 year-olds and older are Maori.

I was prompted to look up these figures - I knew they were low - on the back of a conversation Willie and JT had yesterday about Maori and care of the elderly. They were talking about how, in the past, their elderly were always cared for by the whanau whereas Pakeha put their old in rest homes (though this was changing).

A caller said she had seen research showing that by the 1980s this was no longer true. That rates of 'institutionalisation' were actually the same. In particular, elderly Maori were often committed to psychiatric units. I came across the following table in my hard copy of the 1994 NZ Yearbook. It shows high Maori rates of first admission in the younger population but not the 60+. These stats relate to first admissions though.

Table 7.21. RATES OF FIRST ADMISSION TO PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS*

Year	Ages							Total all ages
	0-9	10-19	20-29	30-39	40-49	50-59	60 and over
*Per 100 000 mean population. Year ended 31 December. Source: Health Information Service
1987—
Maori	15	170	393	253	117	103	51	180
Non-Maori	13	111	218	149	127	98	149	127
1988—
Maori	5	210	488	275	170	131	90	218
Non-Maori	10	108	222	159	127	103	151	129
1989—
Maori	12	179	444	260	153	91	92	197
Non-Maori	11	95	225	157	129	95	133	124
1990—
Maori	12	165	496	338	292	156	37	230
Non-Maori	7	88	240	213	165	140	136	142
1991—
Maori	4	168	470	318	197	91	93	208
Non-Maori	7	80	225	174	122	98	125	121

I've been trying to find historical data relating to residential care populations but drew a blank.

Relating to current numbers the Human Rights Commission produced this report:

 "During visits to aged care facilities the Commission was struck by the absence of Māori as residents. Conversations with providers suggest that residential care residents are predominantly female and Pakeha, although providers have noted increasing diversity in recent years. Data from the OPAL study (2008) based on Auckland figures, show that two percent of rest home residents were Māori, compared to 92.4 percent European and 4.5 percent Pacific Island. Of those in hospital level facilities, 2.6 percent were Māori, 89.1 percent European and 6.4 percent Pacific."

Those numbers are particularly low for Auckland and doubly interesting in light of the Pacific numbers.

So it would appear elderly Maori are disproportionately cared for in their own homes or their adult children's homes. That's a good disproportionality in my view.