Healthier, wealthier but social gap grows

New Zealanders are better off and live longer than they did 20 years ago - but the gap between rich and poor is still widening.

The Government's annual Social Report, issued yesterday, shows that men live 6.4 years longer and women 4.6 years longer than they did in the mid-1980s, and New Zealand's life expectancy still ranks tenth in the world for men and 15th for women.

The latest instalment of the report - a scorecard on key indicators such as income, employment and child abuse - shows improvements across 19 of 25 updated measures.

The report, which for the first time compares current living standards with those 20 years ago, found that poverty is worse, but New Zealanders are better off in most regards.

New Zealanders are generally richer, more likely to have a job, and more likely to leave school qualified.

They are also less likely to die on roads and fewer children are being killed from family violence. Between 1998 and 2003, 38 children died from maltreatment, as against 50 in the preceding five years.

Cigarette smoking has dwindled from 30 per cent of the population in 1986 to 25 per cent in 2003 and 23 per cent in 2004.

However, obesity has increased since 1989 from 13 per cent to 22 per cent for women, and from 10 per cent to 20 per cent for men.

Suicides are also increasing - although that is based on 2003 figures - local government voter turnout is down, and New Zealand-made content on television is dropping.

The Ministry of Social Development's deputy chief executive, Marcel Lauziere, said the 2006 figures were mostly good, as was the longer-term picture looking back to 1986. "Of the 18 indicators we can track from the mid-1980s, the majority have improved. New Zealanders are better educated, they're healthier and more of them are in paid work."

Housing affordability and poverty were now recovering after hitting a trough in the mid 1990s.

- STAFF REPORTER, NZPA