Tuesday, January 17, 2017

One child every 45 minutes

That's roughly how often a child is born onto welfare in New Zealand. According to Statistics NZ a child is born every 9 minutes. According to me every fifth child born will rely on a benefit, if not directly, shortly after their arrival.


If you doubt my statistics, refer to MSD's from earlier years:



At September 2016 there were 179,732 children reliant on a main benefit - slightly up on the June and March quarters but down on Dec 2015. This represents 15.3% of all children (aged 0-18) but in the 0-4 age group, the figure rises to 19.3%.

Sixty nine percent rely on Sole Parent Support (though this is an under count of the extent of sole parent dependence given thousands more receive jobseeker, emergency maintenance, supported living and youth benefits.) Most children reliant on a benefit appear in the child poverty statistics (though not all). Therefore, the main driver of child poverty and hardship is sole parenthood.



(Hat-tip to whoever submitted the OIA request from which the last graph stats are sourced)


4 comments:

David said...

i propose an incentive scheme for long-term contraception. A payment equivalent to packet of cigarettes per week for 6 months for insertion of a contraceptive device thats at least 3 years. A lump sum payment may work better. Need money for grog? Get an IUD or implanon, set and forget.

Each birth on welfare prevented will bring about huge cost savings and reductions in abuse.

Anonymous said...

Therefore, the main driver of child poverty and hardship is sole parenthood.

Nope - the main driver of child poverty and hardship is welfare.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

OK. The main driver of sole parenthood is welfare. Without state subsidy the level would have remained much lower.

Anonymous said...

And when you put it that way the solution speaks for itself. To stop the problem, stop the side.