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It’s a common aspiration for our children to do better in life than we do. This upward social mobility between one generation and the next benefits not only the families but also the country as a whole. Increasing levels of education, skills and income contribute to a more prosperous economy and a wealthier society. Being able to identify the things that support increased education, skills and income is the first step towards investing in actions that will increase the country’s wealth within a single lifetime.
Funded by: Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment
Contract number: ZANAL2501
This research uses New Zealand’s high-quality data resources to look at what things support upward social mobility and what things restrict that mobility. The quality of New Zealand’s data allows this research to look at the national picture as well as focus on specific populations such as Māori and rural communities. The results of this work will help guide investments in policies and programs that create pathways to better economic circumstances for New Zealanders and a more prosperous economy. This work will also support the development of an internationally important research industry based on New Zealand’s world leading data resources.
This project is funded from 2025 - 2028 by the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment Smart Ideas grant. It is led by iNZight Managing Director Andrew Sporle and Senior Researcher Nicole Satherley, in collaboration with Barry Milne and Natalia Boven of the COMPASS Research Centre.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated health inequities between Māori and other New Zealanders. These inequities were predicted by early disease outcome modelling, demonstrated after the second outbreak, and inspired a robust equity-driven vaccination prioritisation strategy the Government was slow to adopt. Central Government’s failure to pro-actively focus on preventing inequity has been the subject of two High Court cases and an urgent Treaty of Waitangi hearing: the predicted inequity occurred and is now routinely reported at a national level in Crown health data.
Alongside the National Hauora Coalition, iNZight Analytics has produced a number of reports on the use of Crown data to improve COVID-19 outcomes for Māori.
Initial report commissioned by: National Hauora Coalition
Additional resourcing from: iNZight Analytics
The initial report from focused on using Crown data to highlight potential focuses of Crown action to improve COVID-19 outcomes for Māori. We put a Te Tiriti lens on the available data to also provide information on how policy amenable factors relate to COVID-19 outcomes, with the aim of identifying potential policy targets that could reduce future health inequities faced by Māori. The report begins with a demonstration of the inequity between Māori/non-Māori and the association of these inequities with area-based social deprivation as measured by the NZ Deprivation Index. However, the intent of was report is to highlight government policy targets, so we then examine whether household and individual factors are associated with good or poor outcomes for Māori specifically.
This report used data in the Stats NZ Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) to quantify and examine inequities with respect to four COVID-19 outcomes: testing positive, hospitalisations, deaths, and vaccination status. This involve dall the available data in the IDI for the entire duration of the pandemic in Aotearoa (as at October 2023) that can be linked at an individual level. This was the first time such a comprehensive analysis of COVID-19 inequity for Māori has been done in Aotearoa. This report is not available to the public.
A technical report of the methods used for this work was later published by iNZight Analytics: More than just living in a deprived area: an equity-focused analysis of policy amenable factors associated with Māori COVID-19 outcomes. This is available for download in the links section.