Saving at bottom of pile

By MARK FRYER

While Statistics New Zealand has been researching the savings habits of New Zealanders, the Economist magazine has been looking at the issue from an international perspective.

It has examined how household savings rates changed in the 10 years to last year, based on figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Of the 19 countries surveyed, New Zealand came last in terms of the percentage of disposable household income which is saved - less than 1 per cent last year, compared with more than 5 per cent in 1991.

But although New Zealand may be the worst of the bunch, its diminishing savings are hardly unusual; savings levels fell over the decade in 15 of the 19 countries surveyed.

In the United States, only 1.6 per cent of disposable income was saved last year, say the OECD figures.

Savings levels also fell in Australia, whose compulsory superannuation schemes are often cited as an example New Zealand should emulate.

And savings do not necessarily go hand in hand with economic performance; the Japanese are still enthusiastic savers, but their economy has lurched from one recession to another over the past decade.