Tupu Ola Moui Volume 3: Healthier Environments

Introduction

This report is part of the Tupu Ola Moui: Pacific Health Chart Book series, which provides comprehensive and up-to-date data on the health of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Designed as a clear and accessible resource, this series offers straightforward descriptions of key health data to enable users to further analyse and interpret their implications. The Tupu Ola Moui series serves as a foundational reference point for understanding the current state of Pacific health.

This volume of the Chart Book series relates to Te Mana Ola: The Pacific Health Strategy priority area 1: Vaqaqacotaka na yavutu ni tiko bulabula – Population health.

This priority focuses on ‘… population health, by working with communities to build, maintain and enable strong foundations for Pacific health and wellbeing’.

The other reports in this series are:

• Tupu Ola Moui Volume 1: Pacific Population in New Zealand
• Tupu Ola Moui Volume 2: Pacific Health Workforce
• Tupu Ola Moui Volume 4: Health System – Part One
• Tupu Ola Moui Volume 5: Health System – Part Two

Glossary

Net financial worth

The value of all financial assets owned by an individual or household, minus all financial liabilities they owe.

NZDep

The New Zealand Deprivation Index is an area-based measure of relative socioeconomic status based on nine Census variables. It is displayed as deciles or quintiles. Each NZDep decile contains about 10% of small areas in New Zealand, where deciles 1 and 2 (or quintile 1) represent areas with the least deprived scores and deciles 9 and 10 (or quintile 5) areas with the most deprived scores.

NZDep-17

NZDep-17 is a material deprivation index designed to measure individual or household-level hardship. It assesses whether households lack access to essential items or services due to financial constraints. NZDep-17 uses a set of 17 items, such as adequate clothing, meals, heating, and medical care, and provides scores to indicate levels of material hardship—ranging from moderate to severe.

Pacific peoples

Refers to people who identify with one or more of the following ethnic groups: Samoan, Cook Islands Māori (Cook Islanders), Tongan, Niuean, Tokelauan, Fijian and other within the statistical definitions of ‘Other Pacific peoples’ and ‘Pacific peoples not further defined (nfd)’.

Defined comprehensively by Stats NZ within the ‘Aria’ classification tool.

Severe housing deprivation

The term ‘severe housing deprivation’ refers to a living situation in which people with no other options to acquire safe and secure housing: are without shelter, in temporary accommodation, sharing accommodation with a household or living in uninhabitable housing.

Uninhabitable housing

Refers to housing in which people lack access to one of six basic amenities – safe drinking water, electricity, cooking facilities, a kitchen sink, bath or shower, and toilet – due to a lack of access to minimally adequate housing.

Summary

This report provides an overview of various socioeconomic indicators for Pacific
peoples, covering financial status, employment, education, health and housing.

Employment and wealth

Pacific peoples’ individual net financial worth was around $16,000 in 2021, which was nine times lower than that of European people ($151,000).

Median weekly earnings for Pacific peoples almost doubled between 2008 and 2024, up 95.3% from $448 to $875.

By contrast, median weekly earnings among Europeans were up 86.7% over the same period, from $510 to $952 per week.

Most Pacific peoples (69.7%) of working age (15–64 years) participated in the labour market in the quarter ending March 2025. The proportion who were unemployed increased from 5.9% to 10.8% between March 2023 and March 2025.

Access to opportunity

In 2023, over half (52.4%) of Pacific peoples lived in the most socioeconomically deprived communities, and only 19.9% of Pacific peoples lived in a home they owned or partially owned. This is around one-third the equivalent rate for Europeans (58.6%).

Pacific peoples also experienced the highest levels of severe housing deprivation in 2023, with a rate of 657.2 per 10,000 people, an increase from the rate of 575.5 per 10,000 people in 2018. The largest group of Pacific peoples experiencing severe housing deprivation were those living in uninhabitable housing.

Approximately 18,300 Pacific children lived in households in severe material hardship in 2024, making up 29.1% of all children in such circumstances.

Pacific children’s participation in early childhood education significantly increased in the years up until 2024, reaching 93.0% that year, up from 75.8% in 2000. Pacific young people tend to have lower school attendance rates. In the second term of 2024, only 41.0% attended school for more than 90% of the expected time, compared to 53.2% for the overall population.

Pacific peoples participate in tertiary education at rates similar to those for the general population. In 2023, the age-standardised participation rate in tertiary education for Pacific peoples was 11.1%; this rate was slightly higher than the overall population average of 10.8%.

Environmental factors

Pacific children were more likely to experience food insecurity than other children in 2023/24. Over half (54.8%) of Pacific children lived in homes where food ran out often or sometimes.

In 2023/24 around one in eight (12.3%) Pacific adults were daily smokers compared to 22.6% in 2011/12, continuing a long-term downward trend. Daily vaping increased significantly between 2017/18 and 2023/24, from 2.7% to 21.5%.

The number of Pacific peoples with a pattern of hazardous drinking appeared to be declining: 16.2% of Pacific adults reported such a pattern in 2023/24, down from 23.6% in 2016/17. Pacific peoples had a moderate-risk and problem gambling prevalence of 5.7%, three times higher than NZ European/MELAA/Other people (1.9%).

Pacific adults were less likely to engage in regular physical activities than non-Pacific adults. In 2023/24, 38.8% of Pacific adults reported undertaking at least 2.5 hours of physical activity in the past week, spread over at least five days. Pacific peoples were also less likely than people in other ethnic groups to be satisfied with the state of local green spaces or to feel safe walking alone in their neighbourhood at night.

Data

Net financial worth

Pacific peoples’ individual net financial worth was around $16,000 in 2021.

Higher net financial worth is associated with better self-rated health and a lower mortality risk; it provides greater access to health care, healthier living conditions, reduced financial stress, better nutrition, and opportunities for preventive care, all of which contribute to overall wellbeing and longevity.

The individual net financial worth of Pacific peoples in 2021 was nine times lower than that of European people ($151,000).

Home ownership

One in five (19.9%) Pacific peoples lived in a home they owned or partly owned in 2023.

Home ownership rates have remained relatively consistent between 2006 and 2023, at approximately 20.0% for Pacific peoples.

Pacific peoples were much less likely to own their own home than people in other ethnic groups in 2023, including Europeans (58.6%), Asians (42.6%) and Māori (30.4%).

Housing deprivation

Pacific peoples experienced the highest levels of severe housing deprivation in 2023. This statistic had worsened since 2018.

The prevalence of severe housing deprivation for Pacific peoples was 657.2 per 10,000 people in 2023.

This rate had increased from 575.5 per 10,000 people in 2018: the measured increase was higher in gross terms than for any other ethnic group.

Pacific peoples were more likely than any other ethnic group to be in temporary accommodation (52.1 per 10,000 people), share someone else’s private dwelling (191.1 per 10,000 people) or live in uninhabitable housing (406.9 per 10,000 people) in 2023.

Median weekly earnings

The median weekly earnings of Pacific peoples almost doubled between 2008 and 2024, up 95.3%.

Median weekly earnings from self-employment income, wage and salary income or government transfer income for Pacific peoples were estimated at $875 per week in 2024, up 95.3% from $448 in 2008.

Consumer price inflation increased by 51.0% over the same period.[1]

This increase was somewhat faster than the figure recorded for Europeans, which increased by 86.7% over the same period, from $510 to $952 per week.

Analysis commissioned by the Human Rights Commission in 2022 showed that Pacific peoples earned, on average, 16.7% less than European people in wages and salaries from their main job in 2021.

There were also differences by gender. Pacific women earned 25.1% less than European men in 2021, and Pacific men earned 18.8% less than European men in the same year.[2]

[1] Reserve Bank of New Zealand. (nd). Inflation calculator (27 March 2025).

[2] New Zealand Human Rights Commission. 2022. Voices of Pacific peoples: Eliminating pay gaps. Wellington: Human Rights Commission.

Engagement with the labour market

Labour force participation among Pacific peoples remains a key area of focus.

As of March 2025, around two-thirds (69.7%) of Pacific peoples of working age (15-64 years) were employed or actively seeking work (the labour force participation rate).

The employment rate was 62.1% and the proportion of those unemployed or underemployed (the underutilisation rate) was 18.9%.

The proportion of Pacific young people aged 15-24 years who were not in education, employment or training (the NEET rate) in March 2025 was 19.4%.

All labour market indicators for Pacific peoples worsened over the past two years. For example, the unemployment rate increased from 5.9% in March 2023 to 10.8% in March 2025.

The trends among Pacific peoples reflect the performance of the broader labour market, but engagement with the labour market is persistently lower among Pacific peoples compared to the general population.[1]

[1] MBIE. Labour Market Statistics Snapshot – March 2025. Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Wellington.

New Zealand Deprivation Index

More than half of all Pacific peoples lived in the most socioeconomically deprived communities in 2023.

The proportion of Pacific peoples who lived in neighbourhoods in the quintile with the highest measured deprivation (quintile 5) was 52.4%.

The comparable rates for Europeans (14.1%) and Asians (19.5%) were much lower, and the rates were moderately lower for Māori (38.9%).

Conversely, 6.3% of Pacific peoples lived in neighbourhoods with the lowest measured deprivation (quintile 1).

Pacific peoples were four times less likely to live in areas with lowest measured deprivation than Europeans (23.5%) and three times less likely than Asians (18.1%) to live in such areas.

Child poverty

Around 18,300 (or 11.3%) of Pacific children lived in severe material hardship in 2024.

Only 13.7% of all children identified as Pacific peoples in 2024, but accounted for 29.1% of all children living in severe material hardship.

The percentage of Pacific children living in households in severe material hardship has remained relatively consistent from 2019 to 2024. Although for some years the sampling error for the annual change in rate prevents interpretation of whether the rate has increased or decreased.

Pacific children were overrepresented among those living in severe material hardship.

By contrast, European children made up 45.0% of all those in severe material hardship while accounting for 63.2% of all children in 2024.

Childhood food security and nutrition

Pacific children were more likely to experience food insecurity than other children in 2023/24.

The proportion of Pacific children for whom food ran out often or sometimes at their home was estimated at 54.8% in 2023/24, compared to 39.6% in 2022/23.

Pacific children were 2.4 times as likely as non-Pacific children to experience this kind of food insecurity in 2023/24, after adjusting for age and gender.

Early childhood education

Pacific children’s participation in early childhood education increased markedly over the past two decades, but they attended for fewer hours than their peers in 2024.

The vast majority (93.0%) of Pacific children attended early childhood education in 2024, up from 75.8% in 2000.

The gap in early childhood education participation between Pacific children and the population as a whole decreased from 14.1% to 3.8% over that period.

Participation by Pacific children in early childhood education peaked in 2019 and 2020 at a rate of 95.6%.

Pacific children tend to spend less time in early childhood education than their peers. For example, in 2024, 29.1% of Pacific four-year-old children attended for 20 or more hours, compared to 39.0% of children in the general population. In the same year, 67.2% of Pacific children aged four years attended for 10 hours or more, compared to 80.6% of all children.[1]

[1] Similar differences were observed among children aged three years, and the disparities for both three-and four-year-olds have widened over the past five years: Ministry of Education. 2025. Participation Intensity Measure: 2017–2024. Wellington: Ministry of Education. See Education Counts. (nd). Early learning participation (accessed 27 March 2025).

Attendance at school

Pacific young people attended school at lower rates than European/Pākehā and Asian ethnic groups.

Only two in five (41.0%) Pacific young people attended school for 90% or more of the expected time in the second term of 2024, compared to 53.2% of young people in the population as a whole.

School attendance rates in the general population have declined over time. They reached the lowest point in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pacific young people had the lowest rate of school attendance (26.4%) of any ethnic group during that year.

While the attendance rate of Pacific young people in 2024 was higher than it was in 2022, it remained lower than it was in 2014 (60.1%).

Tertiary education

Pacific peoples participated in tertiary education at about the same rate as the general population in 2023.

The age-standardised participation rate in tertiary education by Pacific peoples in 2023 was 11.1%.

This rate was similar to the average for the population as a whole (10.8%) and higher than the rate for Europeans (10.3%) and Asians (9.2%).

The age-standardised participation rate of Pacific peoples in bachelor’s degree-level study in 2023 was 2.8%; only slightly below the rate for the population as a whole (2.9%).

The proportion of Pacific peoples that undertook workplace-based training (such as apprenticeships) in 2023 was 3.5%.

In 2023, 7.3% of Pacific peoples aged 15 years or older held a bachelor’s degree. This rate was around half the rate of Europeans (13.9%) and around one-third of the rate of Asians (25.1%).[1]

[1] StatsNZ. 2024. Aotearoa Data Explorer (accessed 27 March 2025).

Smoking and vaping

Fewer Pacific peoples were daily smokers in 2023/24 than in the past, but vaping is increasingly common.

Around one in eight (35,000 or 12.3%) Pacific adults were daily smokers in 2023/24, compared to 22.6% in 2011/12.

Pacific adults were twice as likely to be daily smokers as non-Pacific adults in 2023/24 after adjusting for age and gender.

Around one in five (62,000 or 21.5%) Pacific adults were daily vapers in 2023/24, compared to 2.7% in 2017/18 (when data on vaping began being reported annually).

Pacific adults were 1.7 times more likely to be daily vapers than non-Pacific adults in 2023/24 after adjusting for age and gender.

Surveying of Pacific youth indicated in 2024 that one in six (16.6%) had vaped in the last seven days. This rate is around 1.6 times higher than the rate for Europeans (10.7%).[1]

Daily smoking among Pacific results has fluctuated over the last few years, but these changes should not be interpreted as increases or decreases compared to the previous year – the long-term trend is downward.

[1] Asthma + Respiratory Foundation NZ. 2024. The ARFNZ/SPANZ/NZAIMS Vaping in New Zealand Youth Survey. Wellington: Asthma + Respiratory Foundation NZ. These figures relate to students in years 7–13 of secondary school.

Alcohol use

Hazardous drinking among Pacific peoples appeared to decline over the past eight years.

Around one in six (47,000 or 16.2%) Pacific adults had a hazardous drinking pattern in 2023/24, compared to 23.6% in 2016/17.

Pacific adults were about as likely as non-Pacific adults to be hazardous drinkers in 2023/24 after adjusting for age and gender.

In line with trends for other ethnic groups, Pacific men (22.9%) were more than twice as likely as Pacific women (9.1%) to have a pattern of hazardous drinking in 2023/24.

A survey of Pacific secondary school students in 2019/20 indicated that they were less likely than their non-Māori, non-Pacific peers to have drunk alcohol in the past month (21% versus 35%).[1]

[1] Other measures of alcohol consumption among Pacific secondary school students suggest a more nuanced picture. For example, the proportion of current drinkers in this cohort consuming 10 or more standard drinks in a session remained relatively static between 2007 and 2019 (it was 30% in 2019). See A Veukiso-Ulugia, S McLean-Orsborn, T C Clark, et al. 2024. Talavou o le Moana: The health and wellbeing of Pacific secondary school students in Aotearoa New Zealand. A Youth19 report. Youth19 Research Group, the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington.

Gambling

Pacific peoples have significantly higher rates of gambling harm compared to European and other ethnic groups.

Around one-third (35.4%) of Pacific peoples identified as non-gamblers, a proportion comparable to NZ European/MELAA/Other.

A lower proportion of Pacific peoples (42.0%) were classified as non-problem gamblers compared to NZ European/MELAA/Other (56.4%).

There were relatively similar rates for low-risk gamblers between Pacific peoples (4.7%) and NZ European/MELAA/Other (4.2%).

Whereas 16.1% of Pacific peoples were classified as any-risk gamblers, compared to 10.4% for NZ European/MELAA/Other.

Pacific peoples had a moderate-risk and problem gambling prevalence of 5.7%, three times higher than NZ European/MELAA/Other people (1.9%).

Physical activity

Pacific peoples were less likely to be physically active than non-Pacific people.

Around two in five (38.8%) Pacific adults reported undertaking at least 2.5 hours of physical activity in the past week spread over at least five days in 2023/24.

Pacific adults were less likely than non-Pacific adults to be physically active (the Pacific versus non-Pacific ratio was 0.8) after adjusting for age and gender.

In 2011/12, an estimated 47.3% of Pacific adults were physically active, suggesting a declining trend. However, the change over the past 12 years was not statistically significant.

The most recent General Social Survey found that Pacific peoples were less likely than people in other ethnic groups to be satisfied with the state of local green spaces or to feel safe walking alone in their neighbourhood at night.[1]

[1] Stats NZ. 2024. Wellbeing statistics: 2023 (accessed 27 March 2025).